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india, bangladesh to seal border Pact INDIA’S prime minister arrived in Bangladesh Saturday to seal a land pact which will finally allow tens of thousands of people living in border enclaves to choose their nationality after decades of stateless limbo. During his two-day visit to India’s closest ally, Narendra Modi is also expected to sign a raft of trade and transport deals and meet Bangladesh’s embattled opposition leader Khaleda Zia. But his first trip to Dhaka since his election last May will be dominated by the deal to permanently fix the contours of a border which stretches some 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) along India’s eastern flank. While Delhi’s relations with China and Pakistan continue to be dogged by border disputes, the Land Boundary Agreement’s ratification will remove a thorn that has troubled relations between the two countries since Bangladesh’s 1971 war of secession from Pakistan. India’s intervention on behalf of the independence fighters proved decisive in that conflict and successive Bangladeshi governments have enjoyed close ties with their giant neighbour. But an agreement on the ownership of 162 enclaves—essentially islands of land resulting from ownership arrangements made centuries ago by local princes—had proved elusive in the decades since. Bangladesh actually endorsed the deal in 1974 but it was only last month that India’s parliament gave its approval, teeing up Saturday’s joint ratification ceremony between Modi and his counterpart Sheikh Hasina. Under the agreement, the countries will exchange territories: 111 enclaves will be transferred to Bangladesh and 51 to India. People living in the enclaves will be allowed to choose to live in India or Bangladesh, with the option of being granted citizenship in the newly designated territories, and the enclaves would effectively cease to exist. AFP
Russian President Vladimir Putin (2nd from right), flanked by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (3rdR), attends a meeting gathering foreign ministers of member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Moscow. AFP
putin to west: don’t be afraid of russia Russia is not a threat to the West, President Vladimir Putin insisted in an interview published on saturday, saying that he supported a ukraine peace deal following a fresh outbreak of violence in the east of the ex-soviet country. “I would like to say—there’s no need to be afraid of Russia,” Putin told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in an interview published Saturday, ruling out a major conflict between Russia and NATo member countries. “The world has changed so much that people in their right mind cannot imagine such a large-scale military conflict today.” “We have other things to do, I can assure you,” the Russian president said in the interview, the transcript of which was released by the Kremlin.
“only a sick person—and even then only in his sleep—can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATo.” Speaking ahead of his visit to Italy next week, Putin stressed that Russia merely sought to defend itself from outside threats. He said that NATo members have defence expenditures that are 10 times Russia’s military spending, adding that the US military budget was the biggest in the world. Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine last year has jan-
gled nerves in europe, with Baltic and Nordic countries reporting an uptick in Russian military activity over the past year. Pentagon officials said on Friday that the United States is considering a range of moves to beef up security, including bolstering missile defences or even deploying landbased missiles in europe. Speaking about the Ukraine crisis, Putin accused Kiev authorities of being unwilling to implement a european-brokered peace deal agreed in February in Minsk and enter into dialogue with proMoscow rebel forces. “The problem is that representatives of the current Kiev authorities do not even want to sit down to talks with them,” Putin said. “And there is nothing we can do about it,”
he added, urging the West to prod Kiev into negotiating with rebels. “We would like these agreements to be implemented,” Putin said, stressing that Kiev should ensure autonomy for rebel-held territories and implement a law on municipal elections and a law on amnesty. “The leaders of self-proclaimed republics have publicly said that under certain conditions—that is the implementation of these Minsk agreements—they are ready to consider the possibility of considering themselves part of Ukraine.” “I believe this position should be considered as a serious, good preliminary condition to start serious negotiations,” he said, urging the european Union to provide “greater financial assistance’ to Kiev. AFP
PoPe Francis slams global ‘atmosPhere oF war’ PoPe Francis on Saturday attacked “the atmosphere of war” currently besetting the world as he urged Bosnians to pursue reconciliation efforts, 20 years after a conflict that ripped the country apart. Many conflicts across the planet amount to “a kind of third world war being fought piecemeal and, in the context of global communications, we sense an atmosphere of war,” the pontiff said in a mass at Sarajevo’s olympic Stadium during a one-day visit to the Bosnian capital. “Some wish to incite and foment this atmosphere deliberately,” he added, attacking those who want to foster division for political ends or profit from war through arms dealing.
“But war means children, women and the elderly in refugee camps, it means forced displacement, destroyed houses, streets and factories: above all countless shattered lives. “You know this well having experienced it here.” The pontiff had earlier referred to Sarajevo, with its synagogues, churches and mosques side by side, as a “european Jerusalem”, a crossroads of cultures, nations and religions which required “the building of new bridges while maintaining and restoring older ones.” In a reference to the legacy of the war, which left Bosnia permanently divided along ethnic lines, he urged the country’s Muslim, Serb and Croat communities to reach out to each other.
“In so doing, even the deep wounds of the recent past will be set aside,” Francis said in a meeting with officials of the rotating presidency. The 78-year-old then headed in his popemobile to the stadium, where he was given a rapturous reception by the 65,000-strong crowd. Prayer for peace “I am here because I want peace across the whole world and an end to war and hate,” said Branimir Vujca, 50, a doctor from Kiseljac in central Bosnia, who had come with his wife and three children. Katarina Dzrek, a Bosnian Croat who was also in the crowd, added: “Bosnia is in need of the message of peace the pope will send because there is still a lack
People take pictures of Pope Francis standing on the popemobile as he arrives to lead a mass at the Sarajevo’s city stadium as part of a one day visit in Bosnia. AFP
of trust between.” Around 20,000 visitors from neighbouring Croatia, which is predominately Catholic, were amongst an estimated total of 100,000
people who had turned out for the occasion in the stadium and on the streets. Francis told reporters on his flight from Rome that Sarajevo was “a city that has
suffered much in its history but is now on a beautiful path of peace. “That is why I am making this trip, as a sign of peace and a prayer for peace.” AFP