Diplomacy & Politics Archive

Kai Eide, UN Special Representative to Afghanistan, is making it clear that he expects the second round of elections in Afghanistan, which are fast approaching, to be riddled with similar problems as the first. He suggests the silver lining is that this time around, less fraud can be expected. In an interview with Al-Jazeera’s Imran Garda, Eide deflects questions of culpability for the firing of one of Aide’s subordinates, Peter Galbraith, who denounced corruption right after the first round election took place.

President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, accepted an internationally called for runoff election while speaking alongside Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) in Kabul. In the first round vote two months ago, one-third of Karzai’s votes were discarded after being deemed fraudulent by the Independent Election Commission. It is unclear what, if any, involvement Karzai had in the initial election violations, but it is apparent that he is now prepared to go ahead with a second round of voting. “We consider the decision made by the Independent Election Commission as legal and right,” he says. The runoff election, which will pit Karzai against […]

NEW DELHI — The controversy caused in Islamabad by the Kerry-Lugar Bill, which authorizes an annual grant of $1.5 billion to Pakistan for military and non-military purposes over the next five years, is by now well-known. But because of its implications for the entire South Asian region, the bill has also been greeted with alarm in India. The bill’s explicit goal, as stated by the U.S., is to shore up Pakistan’s civilian government under President Asif Ali Zardari by providing monetary assistance to build roads, schools and other infrastructure. The implicit hope is that this will turn widespread Pakistani antipathy […]

NEW DELHI — India has long seen a reconstruction role for itself in Afghanistan, despite its lack of direct military involvement in the country. Its interests there are obvious: A strong Kabul that keeps the Taliban — and by extension al-Qaida — in check also ensures that jihadi forces in Pakistan do not use Afghanistan as a backyard assembly line for militants who can then be turned against India, and the rest of the world. But New Delhi is not finding its Afghan sojourn easy. Earlier this month, the Indian embassy in Kabul was attacked for the second time in […]

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and PacificAffairs Kurt Campbell testified at a Senate Foreign Relations Committeehearing Oct. 20 on U.S. policy toward Burma, a followup to his Sept. 30 testimony. “Our policy review also was informed by the factthat, for the first time in recent memory, the Burmese leadership hasshown an active interest in engaging with the United States. But, letme be clear: we have decided to engage with Burma because we believe itis in our interest to do so,” Campbell said.

New York Times Columnist Roger Cohen says Israel needs to tone down their rhetoric in dealing with Iran. The seasoned journalist talks to Charlie Rose and says that it would be unlikely for Israel to take military action against Iran while President Obama is in office. He also discusses the contested definition of a war crime with regards to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Zimbabwe’s fragile unity government is facing yet another crisis. The development is all the more unfortunate because, asVoice of America reports, the new government has actually made some progresstoward stabilizing the ailing Zimbabwean economy. The introduction ofthe U.S. dollar and South African rand has been particularlyinstrumental in bringing inflation under control and facilitatingcommerce, though life remains very hard for most Zimbabweans. Voice ofAmerica’s Scott Bobb reports from Harare.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Zimbabwe’s national unity government, limping since its formation on Feb. 15, 2009, is now threatened with an ultimate collapse. After a meeting of its leadership committe last Thursday, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s mainstream Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party announced that it was temporarily pulling out of the coalition with President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU (PF) and the smaller MDC faction led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara. The angry reaction was spurred by Wednesday’s indictment of Roy Bennet, the party’s treasurer. But the MDC said that some outstanding policy issues and a hardliner stance within Mugabe’s […]

A decade after the U.S. Senate declined to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), President Barack Obama is preparing an effort to reverse that decision. But to secure Senate backing this time around, the Obama administration must first overcome residual concerns among some senators that the treaty will harm U.S. national security. The CTBT prohibits all nuclear explosions, whether for military or other purposes, in any environment. Its practical effect would be to extend test prohibitions contained in current treaties and agreements to include underground testing of all nuclear explosive devices, the last domain not formally prohibited by existing […]

The Asia Society’s Jamie Metzl, a Kabul-based election monitor in the first round of Afghan elections, says a power sharing agreement may be the only way for current President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai to regain any sort of legitimacy to his regime. He explains the expansive ‘systemic’ nature of voter fraud and how that implicates the Karzai government. World Focus’ Daljit Dhaliwal speaks with Metzl.

After briefly discussing Afghanistan’s election woes, President Obama turned his attention to progress in Iraq during a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Obama and Maliki celebrated a new dimension of their relationship – the prospect of doing business. The two emphasized a shift in focus from military cooperation to more financial pursuits as Iraq gears up to hold its first business investors conference.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a new U.S.strategy toward Sudan Monday. The new strategy “is the result of anintensive review across the United States government,” Clinton said. A State Department press release characterized it as the “first comprehensive U.S. policy on Sudan that recognizes the linksbetween the Darfur crisisand implementation of the Comprehensive PeaceAgreement.” Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, and Presidential Special Envoy to SudanGeneral Scott Gration joined Clinton at the announcement. Related from WPR: Lord’s Resistance Army Threatens South SudanPeacekeeping General’s Dangerous Darfur Pronouncement

When Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin invited Western energy companies to help develop natural gas fields in Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula in late September, many Western observers viewed it as an admission of defeat. After years of increasing state involvement in the upstream of the Russian hydrocarbon sector, a collapse in the price of oil had pushed Moscow to reconsider its adversarial relations with private investors — foreign and domestic alike. While there is some truth to this interpretation, it ignores a more important narrative that emerged from the meeting at the Siberian frontier town of Salekhard about Russia’s shifting attention […]

Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation interviewed Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Damascus. “Hamas has announced that it is ready to cooperate with the law and with any international or regional effort to reach real peace in the region,” said Khaled during the interview.

On Oct. 19, at a multilateral meeting in Vienna focused on nuclear transparency, U.S. and Iranian representatives will meet for the second time in a month in the hopes of working out the modality by which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will inspect Iran’s newly revealed enrichment facility known as Fardo, near the holy city of Qom. This particular issue is relatively straightforward, and the negotiations will likely result in the Fardo facility being placed under the IAEA’s regular regime of inspections, already firmly in place with respect to Iran’s other nuclear facilities. But it is nonetheless tied in […]

Now that Ireland and Poland have ratified the Lisbon Treaty, a document designed to fundamentally re-engineer the 27-member European Union, Czech President Vaclav Klaus is the only remaining holdout. If Klaus gives in and signs the document, as he is largely expected to do, the Treaty will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2010, ushering in profound changes in the way the EU operates, especially on the global stage. Up until now, the EU has been stymied in its efforts to exert more influence in international affairs, largely because of its inability to “speak with one voice,” especially on matters […]

In addition to coordinating the world’s ruling class with the Clinton Global Initiative and combating HIV/AIDS with the Clinton Foundation, former President Bill Clinton is still fighting for Haiti. In May, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon invited him to be the United Nations Special Envoy to the poorest state in the Western Hemisphere. Clinton accepted, raising the question of where in the world he finds the energy. Earlier this month, Clinton made his third visit of the year to Haiti. During his trip, he toured the country, arguing that the moment was ripe for a revived tourism industry. He then […]