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Key aide of Pakistan’s Imran Khan resigns amidst standoff with army

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(Last Updated On: May 25, 2023)

A key aide of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Wednesday he was quitting politics, dealing a further blow to the embattled ex-premier’s party as a standoff with the military intensified, Reuters reported.

Former Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry’s resignation is the latest – and highest profile – in a string of departures from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, which the civilian government on Wednesday threatened to ban.

“I have decided to take a break from politics, therefore, I have resigned from party position and parting ways from Imran Khan,” Chaudhry said in a post on Twitter.

The former information minister spent days in detention after violent protests swept the country this month after the detention of Khan on corruption charges, read the report.

Chaudhry condemned the protests by Khan’s supporters, who attacked military installations, including army headquarters, and government buildings.

Khan says the corruption allegations were fabricated and that his associates are being forced out under duress from the government and the military in a manoeuvre to dismantle his party before elections scheduled later this year.

He has been embroiled in a tussle with the military since he was removed from power last year in a parliamentary vote which he says was orchestrated by the country’s top generals. The military denies this.

Khan is Pakistan’s most popular leader according to local polls, while the military is its most powerful institution, having ruled directly or overseen governments throughout Pakistan’s 75-year history, Reuters reported.

The face-off has raised new fears about the stability of the nuclear-armed South Asian country of 220 million people as it struggles with its worst economic crisis in decades.

Chaudhry is the second former federal minister to leave Khan. On Tuesday, former Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari announced she was leaving politics, citing health concerns, after spending 12 days in detention.

Most of the top leaders of the PTI have been taken into custody. A number of former parliamentarians and mid-tier leaders have quit the party or politics entirely over the last few days.

Another key aide, former Finance Minister Asad Umar also announced on Wednesday, hours after he was released from detention, that he was resigning from his party position of secretary general.

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told reporters on Wednesday that the government is considering banning the PTI for attacking the “very basis of state” and this could not be tolerated.

A ban would be likely to further enrage Khan’s supporters and exacerbate the confrontation with the military establishment.

PTI party lawyer Ali Zafar said any such step would be challenged in court. He said an entire party cannot be blamed for acts committed by individuals.

Khan, 70, became prime minister in 2018 with the tacit support of the military, though both sides denied it at the time. But he later fell out with the generals after being seen as having tried to interfere in key promotions in the security sphere.

After being removed from power last year, Khan has been campaigning for a snap general elections, rallying supporters across the country. But the prime minister who replaced him, Shahbaz Sharif, has rejected calls for a poll ahead of the due date late this year.

Khan has said the corruption charges were made up to banish him from politics.

He was detained on May 9 but was later freed on bail.

In an address on Wednesday, Khan said he would form a negotiating committee that will offer to talk with state authorities to seek a way out of the impasse, Reuters reported.

He said if that committee was convinced the matter could be resolved by him stepping aside from politics or from not holding snap elections, he would comply.

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US says it doesn’t support Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project going forward

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

The U.S. said on Tuesday it does not support a Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project from going forward and cautioned about the risk of sanctions in doing business with Tehran, Reuters reported.

The Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline, known as the Peace Pipeline, opens new tab, is a long-term project between Tehran and Islamabad, and has faced delays and funding challenges for several years. The pipeline would transport natural gas from Iran to neighboring Pakistan.

Iran and Pakistan had signed a five-year trade plan in August 2023 and set a bilateral trade target at $5 billion.

Pakistan’s Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik said this week that his country was seeking a U.S. sanctions waiver for the gas pipeline from Iran, read the report.

“We always advise everyone that doing business with Iran runs the risk of touching upon and coming in contact with our sanctions, and would advise everyone to consider that very carefully,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson told reporters in a press briefing.

“We do not support this pipeline going forward,” the spokesperson added, saying that Donald Lu, the State Department’s top official for South and Central Asia, had said as much to a congressional panel last week.

A few weeks ago, Pakistan and Iran engaged, opens new tab in tit-for-tat strikes when they exchanged drone and missile strikes on militant bases on each other’s territory, Reuters reported.

Washington’s relations, opens new tab with Iran have been thorny for a long time and the U.S. has issued multiple rounds of sanctions on Iranian entities.

Officially allies in fighting extremism, Pakistan and the U.S. have had a complicated relationship, opens new tab over the years, bound by Washington’s dependence on Pakistan to supply its troops during its long war in Afghanistan but plagued by accusations Islamabad played a double game.

Some Pakistani politicians have also accused Washington of meddling in Pakistan’s domestic politics, charges that Washington denies, read the report.

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Kyrgyzstan urges citizens not to fly to Russia unless necessary

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Kyrgyzstan’s foreign ministry has urged its citizens to put off unnecessary travel to Russia after a deadly mass shooting at a concert hall near Moscow that was blamed on migrants from Central Asia, Reuters reported.

Last Friday’s attack by camouflague-clad gunmen has fanned anti-immigrant sentiment in Russia, especially towards labourers from the predominantly Muslim countries of Central Asia. Seven suspects originally from Tajikistan and one from Kyrgyzstan have been arrested and placed in pre-trial detention.

Islamic State has said it was responsible for the attack and has released video footage of the massacre, in which at least 139 people were killed and 182 wounded. Russia, without providing evidence, has said it suspects a Ukrainian link in the attack, something Kyiv strongly denies.

Videos and photographs circulated online appear to show the suspected gunmen in detention being tortured. The Kremlin declined to comment on the matter and many Russian politicians have praised the security officers involved in the detentions, read the report.

In an advisory issued this week, the Kyrgyz foreign ministry urged citizens to visit Russia only if necessary and, if they do, to make sure they have all the required documents on them at all times and comply with lawful orders of Russian police.

Authorities in neighbouring Uzbekistan issued similar advice to any Uzbek citizens currently in Russia or planning to go there, local media reported.

Hundreds of thousands of Central Asians work in Russia, and some have already said it has become tougher for them to do so. Some passengers, for example, refuse to board taxis with Tajik drivers.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that many passengers trying to fly to Moscow on Monday from the capital of Turkmenistan, another Central Asian state, were not allowed to board. It said they were told by immigration and law enforcement officials that this was connected to “the recent terrorist attack in Moscow”.

Any fall in the availability of migrant labour could cause problems for the Russian economy, which relies heavily on Central Asian workers in sectors such as construction, retail and delivery services.

Russia is suffering an overall labour shortage because of the demands of its war in Ukraine, which led it to call up 300,000 reservists to join the army in 2022 and prompted hundreds of thousands of others to flee the country, Reuters reported.

Alexandra Prokopenko, an economist and analyst at Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said the inflow of migrants had “almost stopped” since the start of the war – partly because immigrants could face pressure to join the Russian army and partly because of competition from other countries to attract them.

“All these people from Central Asia can go and work in Gulf states, South Korea or Turkey – they can get jobs and there would be no problems with money transfers because of (Western) sanctions, there would be fewer problems in terms of safety and security, and probably local authorities would treat them better than in Russia,” she said.

The head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, suggested Friday’s attack was an attempt by those who wish Russia ill to stir up interreligious tensions.

“An attempt was made to pit two traditional religions (Christianity and Islam) against each other, an attempt was made to divide people according to religious principles and also pit one against the other. Of course, we cannot allow anything like this in Russia,” the RIA news agency quoted him as saying.

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Russia’s FSB chief says U.S., Britain, Ukraine behind Moscow attack

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(Last Updated On: March 27, 2024)

The director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov, said on Tuesday that the United States, Britain and Ukraine were behind the Moscow concert hall attack that killed at least 139 people on Friday, state news agency TASS reported.

Ukraine has denied Russian accusations of involvement in the attack, for which the Daesh militant group claimed responsibility. Western countries have said their intelligence indicates that ISIS-K, Islamic State’s Afghan offshoot, was responsible, Reuters reported.

Russia said on Saturday it had arrested all four gunmen suspected of carrying out a shooting massacre in a concert hall near Moscow.

ISIS claimed responsibility for Friday’s rampage, but there were indications that Russia was pursuing a Ukrainian link, despite emphatic denials from Ukrainian officials that Kyiv had anything to do with it.

Moscow regional Governor Andrei Vorobyov said 133 bodies had been recovered from the rubble in 24 hours and doctors were “fighting for the lives of 107 people”. State TV editor Margarita Simonyan, without citing a source, had earlier given a toll of 143.

In a televised address, Putin said 11 people had been detained, including the four gunmen. “They tried to hide and moved towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border,” he said.

Russia’s FSB security service said the gunmen had contacts in Ukraine and were captured near the border. It said they were being transferred to Moscow, Reuters reported.

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