Kashmir dispute: Pakistan downgrades ties with India - BBC News

The row between India and Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir has deepened with Pakistan's announcement that it was expelling India's top diplomat and suspending trade.

Indian-administered Kashmir has been on lockdown since the Indian government decided on Monday to strip the region of its special constitutional status.

Phone networks and the internet have been cut off since Sunday evening.

Tens of thousands of troops have been patrolling the streets.

Instances of protest and stone-throwing have been reported, despite the communications blackout and a curfew.

Kashmiris in other parts of the country said that they were unable to get through to their families. Local leaders have also been detained.

Why is Kashmir so contentious?

The Himalayan region of Kashmir is claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan, but they each control only parts of it.

There is a long-running separatist insurgency on the Indian side, which has led to thousands of deaths over three decades. India accuses Pakistan of supporting insurgents but its neighbour denies this, saying it only gives moral and diplomatic support to Kashmiris who want self-determination.

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Under Article 370 of the Indian constitution, the state of Jammu and Kashmir had special dispensation to make its own laws - the basis for its complex relationship with India for some 70 years.

However, the Indian government is now revoking most of Article 370.

What is Pakistan doing?

Pakistan is suspending all trade between the two countries.

It also recalling its high commissioner (the equivalent of an ambassador) from the Indian capital Delhi and expelling his Indian counterpart from Islamabad.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has "directed that all diplomatic channels be activated to expose brutal Indian racist regime, design and human rights violations", a Pakistani government statement said.

He also directed the armed forces to remain vigilant.

In addition, Pakistan is asking the UN Security Council to consider the dispute.

Neighbouring China has also voiced opposition to the Indian move, describing it as "unacceptable".

How serious is this?

India and Pakistan - who both possess nuclear weapons - have fought two wars over Kashmir since independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

Many people in Indian-administered Kashmir do not want it to be governed by India, preferring instead either independence or union with Pakistan.

The population of the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir is more than 60% Muslim, making it the only state within India where Muslims are in the majority.

While the current insurgency began in 1989, violence surged again in 2016, with the death of a young militant leader, Burhan Wani. Last year, more than 500 people were killed - including civilians, security forces and militants - the highest such toll in a decade.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have for a long time wanted to scrap Article 370 - a promise included in their manifesto for elections earlier this year.

They argued that Kashmir needed to be put on the same footing as the rest of India.

Once returned to power with an increased majority in May, the government lost no time in acting on its pledge.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49267912

2019-08-07 13:42:17Z
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Blast in Kabul Kills 14 and Injures 145 as Taliban Continue Talks With U.S. - The New York Times

KABUL, Afghanistan — A powerful Taliban car bomb exploded on Wednesday outside the entrance of a police station in Kabul, the Afghan capital, killing 14 people and injuring at least 145 others as peace negotiations between the militants and United States diplomats continued.

The explosion, following repeated warnings from the United Nations on rising civilian casualties, was the latest to strike a heavily populated area during the morning rush hour. The blast sent plumes of thick smoke into the sky and shattered windows in a radius of about a mile.

Gen. Khoshal Sadat, Afghanistan’s deputy interior minister, said 14 people were killed and 145 wounded.

Jalal Nazari, who lives about a half mile from the scene of the attack, said he had been lying down in his room when the explosion took place. “I thought it was in our yard,” he said. “The windows shattered, and I got up and went to a corner.”

“It was a bad situation; everywhere was dark, and then shooting started,” he added. “I was so scared.”

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, said the group was responsible for the attack, adding that the insurgents targeted a recruitment center for Afghan forces and that many soldiers were killed or wounded.

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A view of the destruction at the scene of a car bomb blast in Kabul.CreditHedayatullah Amid/EPA, via Shutterstock

The attack came the morning after a tense night across Kabul, with explosions heard in several parts of the city past midnight. The Afghan intelligence agency, in a statement on Wednesday morning, said it had raided three cells of the Islamic State in different parts of the city, resulting in clashes with suspected bomb makers.

Although the Taliban are responsible for much of the war’s insurgent violence, a small affiliate of the Islamic State has gained a stubborn foothold in the east of the country, and has claimed it carried out repeated suicide attacks in urban centers.

The United Nations said July was the deadliest month in Afghanistan in the last few years, with 1,500 civilians killed or wounded.

While the global organization blamed an increase in Taliban attacks for the rise that month, it said in an earlier report on casualties over the first six months of the year that Afghan forces and their international allies were responsible for more civilian deaths than the Taliban.

In a sign of how widespread the violence is, Afghan security forces conducted nearly 100 large military operations and small commando raids and airstrikes in the last 24 hours, the defense ministry said, adding that it had killed at least 84 Taliban fighters and wounded dozens of others.

Both sides often exaggerate casualty tolls, which are difficult to independently verify.

The violence comes as American diplomats are hashing out final details of a preliminary agreement with the Taliban in talks in the Qatari capital, Doha. A deal would pave the way for immediate direct negotiations between the Taliban and other Afghans over the political future of the country.

An agreement between the insurgents and the United States, expected to be finalized soon, would result in a schedule for a conditional withdrawal of the remaining 14,000 American troops and their NATO partners in return for assurances on the prevention of terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies from Afghan soil.

While the United States seems to have assured a third element of its peace plan — direct negotiations between the Taliban and other Afghans, including the national government, immediately after an announcement of a schedule for troop withdrawals — there is little clarity on a demand for a comprehensive cease-fire.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/07/world/asia/kabul-afghanistan-bombing-taliban.html

2019-08-07 11:37:30Z
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North Korea's Kim: Missile launches a warning | TheHill - The Hill

North Korean leader Kim Jong UnKim Jong UnEsper: US won't 'overreact' to North Korean missile launches North Korea launches projectiles for the fourth time in two weeks Missile tests don't alter core US-North Korea dynamic MORE on Wednesday  reportedly called his country's latest missile test a "warning" to the U.S. and South Korea over the countries' joint military exercises. 

He said that Tuesday's missile test was “an occasion to send an adequate warning to the joint military drill now underway by the U.S. and South Korean authorities” Reuters reported, citing state news agency KCNA. 

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Pyongyang said Wednesday that the “new-type tactical guided missiles” launched from the western part of North Korea, flew across its capital and “precisely hit the targeted islet” off the country's east coast, Reuters noted. 

KCNA, meanwhile, reported that the event “clearly verified the reliability, security and actual war capacity” of the weapon, according to the news service. 

The launch was North Korea's fourth in less than two weeks.

The U.S. and North Korea had been in denuclearization talks earlier this year, but those talks stalled after a failed February summit between Kim and President TrumpDonald John TrumpFormer White Supremacist calls on Trump to stop using fear to motivate people Walmart employee urges workers to strike until the company's stores stop selling guns Biden: Violent video games 'not healthy' but aren't 'in and of itself why we have this carnage' MORE in Vietnam. 

South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Sang-min said on Wednesday that North Korea should halt its tests and work on confidence-building, according to Reuters. 

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2019-08-07 11:24:19Z
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Dozens wounded in suicide attack outside Kabul police station - Aljazeera.com

At least 95 people have been wounded in a large explosion outside a police station in Kabul, officials said.

The blast occurred about 9am (04:30 GMT) in western Kabul, interior ministry spokesperson Nasrat Rahimi said before adding that the bomb went off when a vehicle was stopped at a checkpoint outside the station.

Health ministry spokesperson Wahidullah Mayar said at least 95 people, mostly civilians and including women and children, were taken to hospital. There was no immediate confirmation of any deaths in the attack.

The explosion sent a massive plume of smoke over the Afghanistan capital.

"I heard a big bang and all the windows broke with glass flying everywhere," shopkeeper Ahmad Saleh told the AFP news agency.

"My head is spinning and I still don't know what has happened but the windows of about 20 shops around one kilometre from the blast site are broken," he added.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

According to videos on social media and witnesses, small arms fire could be heard following the blast. 

The attack came a day after the Taliban called for the boycott of a presidential election scheduled to take place on September 28 and threatened to attack election rallies.

The Taliban, who have been staging near-daily attacks across the country, usually target Afghan forces and government officials or those seen as loyal to the government.

On Tuesday, a bomb targeting a van carrying employees of the Interior Ministry's counter-narcotics division killed five people and wounded seven in Kabul.

Separately, security forces stormed two Islamic State hideouts in Kabul overnight on Tuesday, killing two of the group's fighters and seizing a large quantity of explosives, according to the National Directorate of Security. 

Three members of the security forces were also killed, an agency spokesman was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency. 

The US and the Taliban met in Doha this week for an eighth round of talks aimed at striking a peace deal that would slash the American military presence in Afghanistan.

Despite negotiations, the fighting has not subsided, as the civilian casualty rates across Afghanistan jumped back to record levels last month, according to the United Nations. 

According to the United Nations, more than 1,500 civilians were killed or wounded in the Afghan conflict in July alone, the highest monthly casualties so far this year and the worst single month since May 2017.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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2019-08-07 10:01:00Z
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Pakistan Warns India's Move To End Kashmir's Special Status Could Lead To War - NPR

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Supporters of the Pakistani religious party Jamaat-e-Islami demonstrate to protest India's policy on Kashmir, in Lahore, Pakistan, on Tuesday. K.M. Chaudary/AP hide caption

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K.M. Chaudary/AP

Pakistan's prime minister warned that a move by India to strip Kashmir of its special status could lead to war between the two countries and the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in the restive Himalayan region.

Imran Khan accused India's Hindu-nationalist government of promoting a "racist ideology."

Referring to India's cross-border airstrike in February on the village of Pulwama in the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir, Khan said such provocations would be more frequent, possibly leading to war, after New Delhi's decision affecting Indian-administered Kashmir.

"This will be a war that no one will win and the implications will be global," Khan said, addressing a joint session of Pakistan's parliament.

He predicted India will intensify a crackdown on Kashmiris, adding, "I fear they may initiate ethnic cleansing in Kashmir to wipe out the local population."

Kashmir remained on lockdown following a decree from India's president on Monday rescinding the region's special status. On Tuesday, India's parliament passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Bill formalizing the change, which is likely to be challenged in court on constitutional grounds.

The disputed Muslim-majority territory of Kashmir is split between India and Pakistan. They have fought two major wars over the region, which is a source of constant tension between the rival neighbors.

Indian-administered Kashmir, which also has sizeable Hindu and Buddhist minorities, enjoyed a semi-autonomous status since it acceded to India in 1947. But discontent there has fueled a protracted separatist movement that has claimed some 45,000 lives since the late 1980s.

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Security personnel stand guard at a roadblock in the city of Jammu on Tuesday. Rakesh Bakshi/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

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Rakesh Bakshi/AFP/Getty Images

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party won an overwhelming victory in elections this spring, vowed in the campaign to revoke the constitutional clause dealing with Kashmir, known as Article 370.

Meanwhile, in Kashmir, where Internet and phone service was cut off ahead of Monday's decree, some 400 local politicians have been placed under arrest by Indian security forces, according to India Today.

The magazine reports that hotels, guest houses, government and private buildings have been turned into makeshift jails to house the detainees, which include separatist leaders and even politicians seen as working for an accommodation with India.

Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police Dilbagh Singh was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying Kashmir's summer capital, Srinagar, was "totally peaceful."

Although the communications blackout made it difficult to know the situation in Kashmir, there were reports of sporadic protests. There have also been numerous protests across Pakistan, proclaiming solidarity with India's Muslim Kashmiris.

A spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Civil Rights, Rupert Colville, on Tuesday expressed deep concern over the situation in Kashmir. "We are seeing, again, blanket telecommunications restrictions, perhaps more blanket than we have ever seen before, the reported arbitrary detention of political leaders and restrictions on peaceful assembly," he told reporters in Geneva.

Long-simmering tensions between India and Pakistan erupted again in February when a Pakistan-based separatist group, Jaish-e-Mohammed, claimed responsibility for a massive car-bomb attack that killed at least 40 Indian security forces troops and wounded half as many in Srinagar.

Islamabad denied any responsibility for the attack, which was followed by India's airstrike on Pulwama.

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2019-08-07 08:27:00Z
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Dozens wounded in suicide attack outside Kabul police station - Aljazeera.com

At least 95 people have been wounded in a large explosion outside a police station in Kabul, officials said.

The blast occurred about 9am (04:30 GMT) in western Kabul, interior ministry spokesperson Nasrat Rahimi said before adding that the bomb went off when a vehicle was stopped at a checkpoint outside the station.

Health ministry spokesperson Wahidullah Mayar said at least 95 people, mostly civilians and including women and children, were taken to hospital. There was no immediate confirmation of any deaths in the attack.

The explosion sent a massive plume of smoke over the Afghanistan capital.

"I heard a big bang and all the windows broke with glass flying everywhere," shopkeeper Ahmad Saleh told the AFP news agency.

"My head is spinning and I still don't know what has happened but the windows of about 20 shops around one kilometre from the blast site are broken," he added.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

According to videos on social media and witnesses, small arms fire could be heard following the blast. 

The attack came a day after the Taliban called for the boycott of a presidential election scheduled to take place on September 28 and threatened to attack election rallies.

The Taliban, who have been staging near-daily attacks across the country, usually target Afghan forces and government officials or those seen as loyal to the government.

On Tuesday, a bomb targeting a van carrying employees of the Interior Ministry's counter-narcotics division killed five people and wounded seven in Kabul.

Separately, security forces stormed two Islamic State hideouts in Kabul overnight on Tuesday, killing two of the group's fighters and seizing a large quantity of explosives, according to the National Directorate of Security. 

Three members of the security forces were also killed, an agency spokesman was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency. 

The US and the Taliban met in Doha this week for an eighth round of talks aimed at striking a peace deal that would slash the American military presence in Afghanistan.

Despite negotiations, the fighting has not subsided, as the civilian casualty rates across Afghanistan jumped back to record levels last month, according to the United Nations. 

According to the United Nations, more than 1,500 civilians were killed or wounded in the Afghan conflict in July alone, the highest monthly casualties so far this year and the worst single month since May 2017.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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2019-08-07 07:53:00Z
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Pakistan will 'go to any extent' to fight India's plan for Kashmir - CNN

The Indian territory remains in lockdown amid a communications blackout, with landline connections, internet and mobile coverage all suspended. Tens of thousands of additional Indian troops have also been deployed into the already heavily militarized region to head off unrest, following Tuesday's parliamentary vote in Delhi to change the status of Jammu and Kashmir from a state to a union territory, thereby removing its autonomy and placing it under the direct control of Delhi.

The controversial vote was met with outcry from Pakistan, which also claims Kashmir and described the move as illegal.

"Pakistan never recognized the sham Indian efforts to legalize its occupation of Jammu and Kashmir through Article 370 or 35-A decades ago, efforts which have now been revoked by India itself," said Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa on Tuesday, referring to the Indian constitutional provision that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

The scrapping of Article 370 will also allow non-residents to purchase property in the valley, and apply for jobs or scholarships that had previously been reserved for the state's residents -- a move experts fear could lead to a demographic change in Hindu-dominated India's only Muslim-majority state.

The remote mountainous region of Ladakh, currently part of Jammu and Kashmir, will also be separated and turned into a standalone union territory, the government said.

"Pakistan Army firmly stands by the Kashmiris in their just struggle to the very end. We are prepared and shall go to any extent to fulfill our obligations in this regard," Bajwa said.

Relations between the nuclear powers of India and Pakistan have been strained since February, when Pakistan reportedly shot down two Indian fighter jets over Kashmir and captured one of the pilots. India said it had retaliated by shooting down a Pakistani jet, which fell on the Pakistan side of the border.

Pakistan released the captive pilot in March and the situation calmed -- but India's Kashmir vote has inflamed tensions again.

On Tuesday Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan also condemned India's decision, accusing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party of believing "that Muslims should be ethnically cleansed in India."

"If the world does not act now, if the so-called developed world does not uphold its own laws, then things will go to a place that will damage the whole world," said Khan, who added he would lobby the United Nations Security Council about the issue.

Earlier on Monday, Pakistan's Foreign Secretary had summoned India's High Commissioner to convey "a strong demarche" on the Kashmir vote, it said in a statement.

Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs "strongly" condemned India revoking Article 370 and would "exercise all possible options to counter the illegal steps," a ministry statement said.

China, which controls about 20% of the Kashmir region, has also protested India's decision, with the Chinese Foreign Ministry accusing India of encroaching on Chinese territorial sovereignty.

Spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday that scrapping Article 370 "is unacceptable and will have no effect," and urged India to "strictly abide by the relevant agreements reached by both sides."

China has close economic, diplomatic and military ties with Pakistan, making it one of the nation's closest allies in region.

India's foreign ministry responded that the bill was "an internal matter concerning the territory of India. India does not comment on the internal affairs of other countries and similarly expects other countries to do likewise."

Kashmir on lockdown

Kashmir is one of the world's most dangerous flashpoints, and has been the epicenter for more than 70 years of an often violent territorial conflict between the Pakistan and India.

The mountainous Kashmir region was free to accede to either India or Pakistan after the two countries separated in 1947. When the Hindu king of Jammu and Kashmir chose to join India in exchange for military protection, it became the country's only Muslim-majority state.

The India-controlled Jammu and Kashmir state covers around 45% of Kashmir, in the south and east of the region, while Pakistan controls Azad Kashmir, Gilgit and Baltistan, which cover around 35% of the total territory in the north and west.

Skirmishes along the de-facto border between Indian-controlled Kashmir and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, known as the Line of Control, continue to break out periodically. Earlier this year, two Pakistani soldiers were killed in cross-border fire with Indian forces, according to the country's military.

But with Jammu and Kashmir now on lockdown, and further change imminent, many Kashmiris are reeling with shock.

"Unprecedented horror in Kashmir," tweeted Shah Faesal, a prominent politician from Kashmir who arrived in New Delhi yesterday. "From citizens to subjects ... A people whose land, identity, history, was stolen, in broad day light."

In addition to the communication blackout, a number of prominent politicians have also been placed under house arrest, including at least two former chief ministers of the state, according to CNN affiliate CNN-News18.

Faesal was unable to reach or message the two former chief ministers, he said in a separate Facebook post.

Until last week, Indian authorities had said the deployment of extra troops were in response to a potential security threat in the region. But residents were tense even before the announcement on Monday, rushing to secure essential supplies.

Now, with news of the bill confirmed, "people are in shock," Faesal wrote.

"Everyone is mourning what we lost ... It's the loss of statehood that has hurt people deeply. This is being seen as the biggest betrayal by the Indian state in last 70 years."

Nikhil Kumar, Swati Gupta, Manveena Suri, Mukhtar Ahmad and Helen Regan contributed reporting.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/07/asia/kashmir-pakistan-response-intl-hnk/index.html

2019-08-07 07:18:00Z
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