International
Open to another summit with Trump: Kim Jong Un
Pyongyang: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says he’s open to having a third summit with President Donald Trump if the United States could offer mutually acceptable terms for an agreement by the end of the year.
Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency on Saturday said Kim’s speech came during a session of the North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament.
Kim during the speech blamed the collapse of his summit with Trump in February on what he described as unilateral demands by the United States.
But he said his personal relationship with the American president remains good.
Kim repeated earlier claims that North Korea’s crippled economy would persevere through heavy international sanctions imposed over its nuclear weapons programme and that he wouldn’t “obsess over summitry with the United States out of thirst for sanctions relief.”
The United States has said the summit broke down because of the North’s excessive demands for sanctions relief in return for limited disarmament measures.
“We of course place importance on resolving problems through dialogue and negotiations. But US-style dialogue of unilaterally pushing its demands doesn’t fit us, and we have no interest in it,” Kim said during the speech.
“We will wait with patience until the end of the year for the United States to come up with a courageous decision. But it will clearly be difficult for a good opportunity like last time to come up.”
The KCNA reported that Kim was re-elected as chairman of the State Affairs Commission, the nation’s most important decision-making body, during a session of the Supreme People’s Assembly that praised his “outstanding ideological and theoretical wisdom and experienced and seasoned leadership.”
The parliament also made a slew of personnel changes that bolstered Kim’s diplomatic lineup.
Experts say the new appointments may be a sign of Kim’s desire to keep recent months of up-and-down nuclear diplomacy alive rather than returning to the threats and weapons tests that characterised 2017, when many feared war on the Korean Peninsula.
India and Pakistan are set to battle it out over Kashmir during the ongoing 42nd UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session here on Tuesday. Both the countries have deployed their big guns for the “diplomatic offensive.”
The Indian delegation is led by Ajay Bisaria, the India High Commissioner to Pakistan who was sent back after Pakistan unilaterally downgraded ties, and Vijay Thakur Singh, Secretary East. The delegation had recently met the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, and briefed her about the situation in Jammu and Kashmir since after the abrogation of Article 370.
On Monday, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi embarked on a three-day visit to Geneva. He is expected to lead the Pakistani charge over Kashmir issue at the UNHRC session. On Monday, Qureshi in a tweet said Pakistan will speak “definitively” at UNHRC sessions over the Kashmir issue.
“Pakistan will speak definitively at the UNHRC Session in Geneva on the continued Indian atrocities in #Kashmir. As High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet said: The People of Kashmir must be consulted and engaged in any decision-making processes,” he said in a tweet. During her address to the Human Rights Council, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Monday said that she was “deeply concerned” over the “impact of recent actions” by the Indian government on the “human rights of Kashmiris” including the detention of political leaders and activists in Jammu and Kashmir.. (ANI)
Washington/Islamabad, September 8: US President Donald Trump on Saturday said he cancelled peace talks with Afghanistanâs Taliban leaders after the insurgent group said it was behind an attack in Kabul that killed an American soldier and 11 other people.
Trump said he had planned a secret meeting with the Talibanâs âmajor leadersâ on Sunday at a presidential compound in Camp David, Maryland. Trump said he also planned to meet with Afghanistanâs President.
But Trump said he immediately called the talks off when the insurgents said they were behind the attack.
âIf they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably donât have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway,â Trump said on Twitter.
Taliban fighters, who now control more territory than at any time since 2001, launched fresh assaults on the northern cities of Kunduz and Pul-e-Khumri over the past week and carried out two major suicide bombings in the capital Kabul.
One of the blasts, a suicide attack in Kabul on Thursday, took the life of US Army Sergeant 1st Class Elis A. Barreto Ortiz, 34, from Puerto Rico, bringing the number of American troops killed in Afghanistan this year to 16.
A spike in attacks by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan has been âparticularly unhelpfulâ to peace efforts there, a senior US military commander said on Saturday as he visited neighbouring Pakistan, where many Taliban militants are based.
US Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, who oversees American troops in the region, declined to comment on the diplomatic negotiations themselves.
Earlier this week, US and Taliban negotiators struck a draft peace deal which could lead to a drawdown in US troops from Americaâs longest war. But a wave of Taliban violence has cast a long shadow over the deal.
âIt is particularly unhelpful at this moment in Afghanistanâs history for the Taliban to ramp up violence,â McKenzie, head of US Central Command, told reporters travelling with him.
McKenzie said for the peace process to move forward, âall parties should be committed to an eventual political settlementâ which, in turn, should result in reduced violence.
âIf we canât get that going in, then it is difficult to see the parties are going to be able to carry out the terms of the agreement, whatever they might or might not be,â McKenzie said.
Under the draft accord, thousands of U.S. troops would be withdrawn over the coming months in exchange for guarantees Afghanistan would not be used as a base for militant attacks on the United States and its allies.
However, a full peace agreement to end more than 18 years of war would depend on subsequent âintra Afghanâ talks. The Taliban have rejected calls for a ceasefire and instead stepped up operations across the country.
Islamabad, Sep 5 : Pakistan has admitted that 333 Twitter accounts have been suspended for writing on Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370.
The handles were suspended by Twitter following the objection by the Indian authorities in view of false and provocative content being disseminated through the accounts.
The PakisÂtan TelecommuniÂcation Authority (PTA) raised the issue of suspension of tweets and blocking of Twitter accounts with the Twitter administration on Wednesday, reported Dawn news.
The PTA has termed the Twitter administration’s approach as biased. According to the statement issued by the regulator, it has also requested Pakistani social media users to report any Twitter account suspension on the pretext of posting Kashmir content to the PTA.
The PTA has already received 333 such complaints which were sent then to Twitter to be restored, however, only 67 accounts were restored, reported Dwn news.
The PTA said Twitter has not responded officially nor given any reason for the suspension of these accounts.
The regulator said it is already making efforts to engage with Twitter to ensure freedom of expression for social media users in Pakistan.
It said it has invited Twitter’s administration for a meeting in Pakistan or anywhere they prefer in order to have meaningful discussions and devise a workable arrangement. But Twitter is yet to respond, PTA said.
Dawn reported in August that some 200 Twitter accounts were suspended for apparently posting about Kashmir. The claim came from journalists, activists, government officials and fans of the military tweeting.
Director-General of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor had then said the authorities had taken up with Twitter and Facebook regarding the suspension of Pakistani social media accounts.
Under The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016, PTA is the sole body that can officially block access to unlawful online content on the internet and take it up with relevant platforms in cases where the PTA is unable to block them because of technical grounds.
The telecom sector regulator has also asked the users of the microblogging site to register their concerns about the suspension of their tweets or blocking of their accounts at the email address [email protected] (IANS)