India, China, Russia refrain from seeking East Jerusalem as Palestine capital

Agencies
December 12, 2017

New Delhi, Dec 12: India, Russia and China on Monday refrained from seeking East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine after a meeting of foreign ministers from the three countries met in New Delhi.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj hosted her Russian and Chinese counterparts Sergey Lavrov and Wang Yi for the 15th annual meeting of the Russia-India-China (RIC) in New Delhi.

The joint statement issued after the meeting called for "negotiations aimed at creating an independent, viable, territorially contiguous Palestinian State living side by side in peace and security with Israel within mutually agreed and internationally recognised borders". It, however, did not have any reference to East Jerusalem.

The last RIC joint statement issued after the 14th meeting of the foreign ministers of the three nations in Moscow in April 2016 had categorically called for East Jerusalem to be the capital of the future state of Palestine.

The move by Russia, India and China to drop the reference to East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine came just days after US President Donald Trump formally recognised the ancient holy city as the capital of Israel.

The US move evoked sharp criticism not only from Arab world, but also from Europe and many other nations. Trump also set in motion a plan to shift the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Moscow has expressed concern over the US move. Russia's ambassador to Israel, Alexander Shein, however, was quoted saying that Moscow had recognised West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in April this year. He, however, also said that Russia could consider shifting its embassy from Tel Aviv to West Jerusalem after the "Palestinians and the Israelis agree on all issues of the final status" of the territories of Palestine.

China, however, reiterated its support to establishment of an independent sovereign Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital as recently as last week. "The status of Jerusalem must be determined through dialogue and negotiation on the basis of UN resolutions, and the two-state solution remains a viable, fundamental solution to the Palestinian issue," Wang said in Beijing after the US recognised the ancient city as the capital of Israel.

New Delhi declined to toe the US line on recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and stated that its position on Palestine was "independent and consistent" and shaped by its "views and interests, and not determined by any third country". India, however, refrained from reiterating its long-held view that eastern part of the holy city should be the capital of Palestine.

India in fact stopped calling for East Jerusalem to be the capital of Palestine this year. Hosting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in New Delhi in May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi did call for "a sovereign, independent, united and viable Palestine, co-existing peacefully with Israel", but avoided supporting the demand for East Jerusalem to be the capital of Palestine. He carefully avoided referring to it during his visit to Israel in July – the first by a Prime Minister of India, although the two countries had established formal diplomatic relations in 1992. His message on the occasion of International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People on November 25 last or India's statement to UN General Assembly on November 29 last too did not refer to the call for East Jerusalem to be the capital of Palestine.

The leaders of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) too refrained from calling for East Jerusalem the capital of Palestine when they issued a joint statement after the summit of the five-nation bloc at Xiamen in China in September. The statement issued after the BRICS summit in Goa in October 2016 had reiterated the call for East Jerusalem to be the capital of Palestine.

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News Network
April 9,2020

Paris, Apr 9: More than 1.5 million cases of the novel coronavirus have been registered worldwide, according to a tally compiled by AFP at 0530 GMT Thursday from official sources.

Of the 1,502,478 infections, 87,320 people have died across 192 countries and territories since the epidemic first emerged in China late last year.

The tallies, using data collected by AFP from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections. Many countries are only testing the most serious cases.

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News Network
June 26,2020

Washington, Jun 26: The US is reviewing its global deployment of forces to ensure it is postured appropriately to counter the People's Liberation Army, given the increasing threat posed by China to Asian countries like India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday.

Mr Pompeo made those remarks in response to a question during the virtual Brussels Forum 2020 of the German Marshall Fund.

"We're going to make sure we're postured appropriately to counter the PLA. We think that the challenge of our times, and we're going to make sure we have resources in place to do that," Mr Pompeo said.
 
The force posture review is being done at the direction of President Donald Trump, as part of which the US is reducing the number of its troops in Germany from about 52,000 to 25,000, he said.

Mike Pompeo said that the force posture would be dictated by the ground realities.

"In certain places there will be fewer American resources. There'll be other places - I just talked about the threat from the Chinese Communist Party, so now threats to India, threats to Vietnam, threats to Malaysia, Indonesia, South China Sea challenges, the Philippines," he said.

"To the extent that that changed, the difference in what the US decided to do impacts adversely a threat some place, it may be that other nations need to step up and take responsibility for their own defense in ways that they hadn't done previously. So, we want to do this in full consultation with all of our partners all around the world, and certainly our friends in Europe," Mr Pompeo said.

President Trump is being criticised for reducing troops from Germany. His critics say that this will increase the threat from Russia to Europe.

Mike Pompeo, however, did not agree with that argument.

It has been a long time since there has been a strategic review of our force posture all across the world. The US undertook that starting about 2.5 years ago, whether that was our forces in Africa, our forces in Asia, the force we have in the Middle East and in Europe, he said.

"We began to say these are often decisions that were made in a different time. Should we reallocate those a different way? Should we have a different composition of those forces? Everyone always wants to talk about ground troops. I get it. I was a young tank officer. You described that. There's nothing I like as much as a good M1 tank.

"But it's often the case that the capacity to deter Russia or other adversaries isn''t determined any longer by just having a bunch of folks garrisoned someplace. So, we really went to back fundamentally relook, what is the nature of the conflict, what''s the nature of the threat, and how should we allocate our resources, whether that''s our resources in the intelligence community, our resources from the Air Force or the Marines and Army," Mr Pompeo said.

Last week, Mike Pompeo criticised the Chinese Army for "escalating" the border tension with India and militarising the strategic South China Sea. He also described the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) as a "rogue actor".

"Our broad set of allocation of security apparatus, our ability to counter cyber threats, how do we allocate them? What''s the best way to do this? And the decision that you see the president made with respect to Germany is an outcome from a collective set of decisions about how we''re going to posture our resources around the world," said the top American diplomat on Thursday.

Changes in force posture is being taken in consultations with allies and friends, Mr Pompeo said.

"President Trump has spoken to this. (Defense) Secretary (Mark) Esper will be in London today and in Brussels tomorrow. We''ll talk about our plan and how we''re thinking about delivering it," he said.

"But you should understand this, and I hope our European partners will understand this as well. When you see what we ultimately conclude, how we ultimately deliver on the statements of the president made, that they''re aimed squarely at what we believe to be democracies'' fundamental interest and certainly America's most fundamental interest," Mr Pompeo said.

Earlier this month, Mike Pompeo had said that China's actions, be it on the India border, or in Hong Kong or in the South China Sea, were part of the behaviour of the ruling Communist Party in Beijing in the recent past.

China has been fast expanding military and economic influence in the Indo-Pacific region, triggering concern in various countries of the region and beyond.

China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in both the South China Sea and the East China Sea. Beijing has built up and militarised many of the islands and reefs it controls in the region. Both areas are stated to be rich in minerals, oil and other natural resources and are vital to global trade.

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News Network
February 18,2020

New Delhi, Feb 18: Election strategist-turned-politician Prashant Kishor on Tuesday questioned the Nitish Kumar government's development model, even as he sneered at the chief minister for making ideological compromises to stay in an alliance with the BJP.

Kishor, who has been vocal about his opposition to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), said Kumar needs to spell out whether he is with the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi or those who support Nathu Ram Godse.

"Nitish ji has always said that he cannot leave the ideals of Gandhi, JP and Lohiya... At the same time, how can he be with the people who support the ideology of Godse? Both cannot go together. If you want to stay with the BJP, I don't have any problem with it but you cannot be on both sides," he said.

"There has been a lot of discussion between me and Nitish-ji on this. He has his thought process and I have mine. There have been differences between him and me that the ideologies of Godse and Gandhi cannot stand together. As the leader of the party you have to say which side you are on," he added.

In a direct assault on Kumar's model of governance, Kishor said Bihar was the poorest state in 2005 and continues to be so.

"There has been development in Bihar during the last 15 years, but the pace has not been as it should have," he added.

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