MODI, SHARIF, HOLD EARLY BILATERAL TALKS
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held bilateral talks with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on his first day in office, urging Pakistan to crack down on militants. Indian Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh said the two countries discussed trade, hoping to move “towards normalizing trade ties” with the understanding that Pakistan must “abide by its commitment to prevent its territory and territory under its control from being used for terrorism against India.” Modi took the unprecedented step of inviting Sharif (and all heads of state from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation to his inauguration. (BBC, May 27, 2014; CNN, May 27, 2014)
MODI TO CHAIR NUCLEAR COMMAND AUTHORITY
Prime Minister Modi will chair India’s political council of the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA), the “sole body” that can authorize a nuclear strike. Although India does not have an elaborate nuclear chain of command or succession system like the U.S., the BJP proclaimed India’s nuclear doctrine would be “revised and updated” though not to include a revision of the longstanding “no-first use”(NFU) policy. Mr. Modi will soon be getting a detailed briefing on the country’s arsenal and its command and control systems. Countries like Pakistan and China have kept their NFU policies vague, but India has been steadfast in its commitment as it pursues nuclear advancements in the form of nuclear submarines, and long-range nuclear capable ballistic missiles. A NFU policy requires an assured and effective second-strike capability, which requires a strong sea-based deterrent. (Times of India, May 27, 2014)
OBAMA VISITS AFGHANISTAN – REVEALS POST-2014 PLAN AND MORE
President Obama’s surprise trip to Afghanistan has made headlines in more ways than one. On an embarrassing note, the White House inadvertently included the name of the top CIA official in Afghanistan on a list of meeting participants during a military briefing with Mr. Obama. The big announcement, however, was that the U.S. would seek to keep 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014 to support counterterrorism operations against the remnants of al-Qaeda if the next Afghan President signs a Bilateral Security Agreement. Both candidates in the current presidential runoff, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani have signaled that they will sign the agreement quickly. By the end of 2015 force levels would be cut in half, and by the end of 2016, the U.S. would “draw down to a normal embassy presence with a security assistance office in Kabul.” (USA Today, May 27, 2014; Reuters, May 27, 2014)
PAKISTAN TALIBAN SPLITS
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) announced it has split after the influential Mehsud faction announced it no longer wants to be associated with the group following months of infighting. A spokesperson for the Mehsud group says "[The leadership] within the TTP has gone towards robberies, extortion, unjustified killing [and targeting] Islamic madrassas, and it is taking foreign funding to attack targets in Afghanistan, taking responsibility for attacks under false identities, creating divisions within other jihadi groups, and especially spreading unfounded propaganda against the Afghan Taliban," said Tariq in a released video, which was shot at an undisclosed location. The new leader of the Mehsud faction will be Khalid Mehsud, a local TTP commander in South Waziristan, but it is unclear how many will fight under his banner. (Al-Jazeera, May 28, 2014)
YET ANOTHER HORRIFIC “HONOR KILLING” IN PAKISTAN
A pregnant Pakistani woman was beaten to death by 20 members of her family outside of a high court in Lahore, Pakistan. The family claims it was an "honor killing" because she would not marry the cousin her family had intended her to marry, and instead eloped with a different man whom she had chosen for herself. The public nature of the murder is unusual but honor killings themselves are not. Hundreds, and possibly thousands, of women are killed every year in Pakistan in this entrenched form of cultural violence. In Pakistani law, the victim’s family can forgive the perpetrator and grant him impunity, and since most of the time the perpetrator is within the family, it conveniently allows the murder to go unpunished and the killings to continue. (CNN, May 28, 2014)