Supporters of banned sectarian group Sipah-e-Sahaba raise their hands to condemn United States in Islamabad, Pakistan on Thursday. Thousands of supporters denounced any American move to send ground forces to fight militant groups on the nuclear armed country’s soil. Leaders proposed peace negotiations for both the US and Pakistan with the militants fighting the two allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. (pti)

ISLAMABAD: US President Barack Obama’s warning to Islamabad over suspected ties to militants will hurt efforts to stabilise Afghanistan and fuel anti-Americanism, the chairman of Pakistan’s Senate Foreign Affairs Committee said on Friday.

Pakistan is seen as critical to bringing peace to neighbouring Afghanistan, but the United States has failed to persuade it to go after militant groups it says cross the border to attack Western forces in Afghanistan.

”This is not helping either the United States, Afghanistan or Pakistan,” Salim Saifullah told Reuters. ”There will be pressure on the (Pakistan) government to get out of this war,” he said, referring to the US war on militancy.

Obama warned Pakistan on Thursday that its ties with ”unsavory characters” had put relations with the United States at risk, as he ratcheted up pressure on Islamabad to cut links with militants mounting attacks in Afghanistan.

His comments are likely to deepen a crisis in the strategic alliance between the United States and Pakistan. Obama accused Pakistan’s leaders of ”hedging their bets” on Afghanistan’s future, but stopped short of threatening to cut off US aid, despite calls from lawmakers for a tougher line over accusations that Pakistani intelligence supported strikes on US targets in Afghanistan.

Pakistan says it has sacrificed more than any other nation that joined America’s global ”war on terror” after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, losing 10,000 soldiers and security forces, and 30,000 civilians.

But its performance against militants operating from its unruly tribal northwest border region is a frequent source of tension between Washington and Islamabad.

Ties were heavily strained after US special forces launched a unilateral raid that killed Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani town on May 2.

They deteriorated further after the top US military official accused Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency of supporting a September 13 attack by the Taliban-allied Haqqani militant group on the US embassy in Kabul.

Saifullah said Washington’s public criticism of Pakistan was counter-productive and would only encourage militant groups.

”War in Afghanistan is passing through a critical phase, evolutionary phase,” he said. ”At this stage, muddying water is not appropriate. This is exactly what the militants want. They are playing to their tune. This is adding strength to them.”

Some analysts agree with his assessment.

”This will create more tension and what the Americans want is not likely to happen in the near future,” said political analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi.

The United States has long called for a military offensive against the Haqqani network, which it says is based in North Waziristan, a global hub for militants on the Afghan border.

Pakistan sees the Haqqani network — perhaps the most feared Taliban-allied insurgents in Afghanistan — as a counterweight to the growing influence of rival India there, analysts say.

Pakistan denies links to the group, which says it no longer operates from sanctuaries in North Waziristan and feels secure operating in Afghanistan after battlefield gains. Obama made clear that future US-Pakistani relations would depend heavily on whether Islamabad complies with Washington’s demands to sever connections with insurgents. But public demand from Washington will make Islamabad more reluctant to take action because caving in after constant pressure could be political suicide in a country where anti-American sentiment runs high, and the government is unpopular.

Many Pakistanis believe they have been dragged into a war against militancy that only serves American interests.

That sentiment has become more widespread because of an escalation of US drone aircraft missile strikes against militants in Pakistan under the Obama administration.

”Are we owned by the United States? If so, please make our terms of servitude clear Mr. Obama so we can just get on with it,” said Mishayl Naek, a bank employee in the city of Karachi, in reaction to the US president’s demands of Pakistan. (PTI)

Seoul: North Korea could conduct a third nuclear test or missile launch before next year’s US and South Korean presidential elections if nuclear disarmament talks fail, a senior Seoul official said on Friday.

“I think that North Korea could test-launch a long-range missile or conduct a third nuclear test if de-nuclearisation talks with South Korea and the US fail,” said Kim Tae-Hyo, presidential secretary for national security strategy.

“North Korea could take provocative acts if it judges it won’t be able to extract economic aid from South Korea and the US ahead of next year’s presidential elections in both countries,” Kim told a security forum.

Chun Yung-Woo, senior presidential security secretary, told the same forum the North must shut down its newly disclosed uranium enrichment programme before the six-nation disarmament talks can be restarted.

“In order for the six-party talks to resume, North Korea must show sincerity and take the required pre-steps, including a monitored shutdown of its uranium enrichment programme,” Yonhap news agency quoted him as saying.

“North Korea claims that the six-party talks should be resumed without preconditions but it does not want to tackle the core issue — nuclear weapons,” Chun said. The North abandoned the six-party forum in April 2009 and staged its second nuclear test a month later. It now calls for an unconditional resumption of negotiations.

The United States and South Korea say the North must first show it is serious about the process, notably by shutting down the uranium programme which could be reconfigured to make bombs.

“As a matter of principle, we have no intention of rewarding North Korea for its illegal nuclear weapons,” Chun said.

Last month, the nuclear envoys of South and North Korea held a second meeting in as many months to try to lay the groundwork for the resumption of the six-party talks. No significant progress was, however, reported. (AFP)

Jakarta: The first World Delta Summit will be organized in Indonesia on Nov 21-24, 2011, according to Secretary of the Coordinating Ministry for People`s Welfare Indroyono Soesilo.

The summit would be the first world`s event combining science, policy and practice elements, Indroyono said here on Thursday.

He said the results of the World Delta Summit would be presented in the Climate Change Summit to be held in South Africa this year. The delta summit, which will be organized by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences and Delta Alliance’s Indonesia Wing, is a follow up of the Deltas in Time of Climate Change Conference, which was held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, September 28-October 1, 2011.

“In the conference, Indonesia was given a trust to host the World Delta Summit 2011,” he said. The Delta Summit`s participants are expected to share a common but differentiated responsibility on securing the deltas functionality for our survivability, call for an immediate action plan with long term shared vision, produce acceptable and robust worldwide policies, and address the challenges and create new opportunities as well while reducing the disaster risks and properly alleviating the poverty under the changing climate.

Deltas and coastal lowlands are the most prolific of regions, because of their rich environmental resources and strong economic potential.

They are hubs of innovation, biodiversity, industrial and agricultural productivity, and home to the fastest growing cities in the world. Great ancient and current civilizations begin in deltas. (PTI)