G8 announces Afghanistan Pakistan economic 'initiative'
GATINEAU (March 31 2010): G8 foreign ministers agreed Monday on an economic "initiative" for the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions, Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said. "Stability in the region is critical for global security," Cannon told reporters at the start of two days of G8 talks.
Foreign ministers from Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States, as well as European Union chief diplomat Catherine Ashton, met to discuss threats such as nuclear proliferation, regional conflicts and terrorism. G8 foreign ministers are following US President Barack Obama in calling for swift progress on a host of issues from Afghanistan's leader Hamid Karzai, including measures to combat graft.
The Afghan conference in Kabul in May is expected to be where Karzai clarifies his government's "vision for the country," the chief diplomats wrote in a statement released late Monday. He must "take concrete and transparent steps" and "act swiftly... to combat corruption," the ministers said.
"We urge the Afghan government in the strongest terms to honor its international human rights treaty obligations, including respect for women's equality, and the right to freedom of expression," the group said at the start of two-day talks on global security and terrorism. Obama similarly voiced the urgent need for evidence of advancement from Karzai's government.
"I think that the progress is too slow, and what we've been trying to emphasise is the fierce urgency of now," Obama said in an interview to air early Tuesday on US television, following his return from a surprise trip to the country in which the two leaders held talks.
He had pushed Karzai, who has had tense relations with the Obama administration, to make greater efforts to tackle corruption and the rampant drug trade that has been blamed for providing financial backing to Islamic militants. Iran's nuclear ambitions took center stage Tuesday at a Group of Eight foreign ministers summit on global security and terrorism, overshadowed by the deadly Russian subway blasts.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton affirmed late on Monday the participation in Iranian sanctions talks of China, seen as the most hesitant member of the so-called "P5-plus-1" - the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany that are negotiating with Tehran. Beijing, she said in an interview with Canadian television, will play a role in efforts to forge sanctions at the United Nations against the clerical regime.
"I think as the weeks go forward and we begin the hard work of trying to come up with a Security Council resolution, China will be involved," Clinton told Canadian broadcaster CTV, adding that Beijing recognised the threat of Iran's nuclear program. "China is part of the consultative group that has been unified all along the way, which has made it very clear that a nuclear-armed Iran is not acceptable to the international community," she said.
G8 ministers at the global security talks were to discuss an upcoming review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at a New York conference in May and a nuclear security summit in Washington next month. The meeting in Gatineau, Quebec, near the capital Ottawa, sets the stage for G8 and G20 leaders' summits in Muskoka, Ontario and Toronto in June.
"The NPT bargain is now under pressure from the perception that the nuclear weapons states have not disarmed, from the actions of countries like Iran and North Korea and from the perceived lack of support for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy," Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said late Monday. "For the sake of future generations we need to work to renew and expand the global consensus around the treaty and its goal of a world without nuclear weapons."
Cannon previously warned that more UN sanctions against Iran appeared inevitable, and said he would ask delegates to consider "additional pressure on Iran to persuade it to stop its nuclear enrichment activities and convince the Iranian authorities to come back to the table."
He was echoed by Japan's Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, whose spokesman said the world must consider a "stronger response" to Iran's defiance, "including a possibility of adopting a new UN Security Council resolutions." "We hope China, together with Russia (and others) will get onboard to make any decision effective," he added.
On Monday, in the wake of the deadly Moscow metro bombing, the specter of crippling urban terrorism sucked out the air as ministers arrived for the talks. On behalf of his G8 counterparts, Cannon said G8 foreign ministers "strongly condemned the cowardly terrorist attacks" on the Moscow subway early Monday.
Ministers also expressed "their deepest sympathy to all who have been injured or bereaved by these attacks, and call for the prosecution of all those responsible," he said. The twin rush-hour suicide bombings on packed metro trains in Moscow killed at least 39 people. Clinton told CTV that governments and nations of the world faced a "common enemy" in terrorism, and have no choice but to "go after the terrorists." "Whether you are in a Moscow subway or a London subway or a train in Madrid or an office building in New York, we face the same enemy," the top US diplomat said.
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G8 announces Afghanistan Pakistan economic 'initiative'
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