Day: September 7, 2019

Venezuela opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez is forming a shadow government from his refuge at the Spanish Embassy in Caracas, despite an agreement that prohibited him from engaging in political activity when the embassy granted him asylum five months ago.

Lopez sought the protection of Spain’s diplomatic mission after he led a failed coup against embattled President Nicolas Maduro in April. He was backed in the effort by parliamentary president Juan Guaido, who is recognized as the transitional head of state by the United States and 50 other countries.

Guaido says that he has named Lopez to form a “center of government,” or shadow cabinet, to prepare for an eventual takeover by the opposition, as U.S. sanctions bite into Maduro’s remaining lifelines.

Spain says the conditions under which they took in Lopez have not changed. But Maduro’s growing isolation and Venezuela’s deteriorating economy may be forcing the hand of EU governments, which have been trying to broker a deal between Maduro and his opponents on terms for new elections.

“The conditions on which protection was granted have not varied nor are they affected by the decision of president Juan Guaido to name Lopez General Coordinator for the creation of a center of government,” Spain’s foreign ministry told VOA in a written statement.

In what opposition spokesmen say could be a fatal blow for the Maduro administration, China’s national oil company announced this week that it is suspending oil production in Venezuela due to growing logistical complications and tightened U.S. sanctions. China and Russia have been Maduro’s largest customers.

The Spanish Embassy does not allow Lopez to give interviews. Nor is he permitted to hold political meetings. But he is in daily contact with his father, Leopoldo Lopez Gil, a Spanish national and member of the European Parliament. Speaking to VOA by phone from Brussels, Lopez Gil said his son is busy online with other members of the “shadow cabinet” appointed by Guaido.

“He receives reports and interfaces electronically with economists, jurists, engineers and other experts formulating plans to deal with the desperately urgent problems that a new government would face,” Lopez Gil said.

“We want to be positioned to take the bull by the horns without falling in the mud as happened in Panama,” he said, referring to the days of heavy fighting that followed the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama to topple Gen. Antonio Noriega.

Exiled Venezuelan retired admiral Ivan Carratu, who maintains a network of contacts inside Venezuela’s military, says that Lopez’s project is unlikely to attract support from Venezuela’s armed forces, who hold the key to any peaceful transition of power.

“The main purpose of the shadow government is to project the figure of Lopez as future president in whatever scenario unfolds,” Carruto said.

Even if Maduro is ousted, Lopez Gil said, outside military assistance may be needed to counter armed resistance that is likely to develop from radical pro-Maduro “colectivos” headed by Cuban advisers and linked with Colombian leftist guerrilla groups controlling vast chunks of Venezuelan territory.

Lopez Gil said a “reactivation” of guerrilla activity announced last week by FARC leader Ivan Marquez — who is based in Venezuela — is “highly worrying.”

Colombian security analyst Jose Marulanda Marin believes the effort to form a parallel government is likely to have “little effect,” but he worries about attempts to assassinate key participants who are now living in exile in Colombia. Those include former parliamentary speaker Julio Borges, who was named last week as foreign minister in the shadow cabinet.

U.S. coordination with the shadow government is being handled through a Venezuelan Affairs Unit (VAU) at the American Embassy in Colombia. The unit is directed by U.S. diplomats who were expelled from Venezuela after being accused of supporting coup plots last year.

“The VAU will continue to work for the restoration of democracy …the security and well-being of the Venezuelan people …interacting with the government of interim president Juan Guaido,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said.

…

Officials in Afghanistan Saturday announced that security forces have recaptured a key northeastern district from the Taliban after five years, as heavy clashes raged in provinces elsewhere in Afghanistan.

The Taliban has intensified attacks even as its representatives are engaged in a fresh round of peace negotiations with the United States in Qatar for ending the 18-year-old Afghan war, America’s longest overseas military intervention.

The Afghan Defense Ministry said the fighting for renewed control over Wardoj in Badakhshan province killed about 100 Taliban insurgents, including their key commanders. It claimed Afghan security forces “carried out this operation successfully without sustaining any losses.”

The ministry asserted in its statement that the Taliban’s so-called shadow governor, Qari Fasihuddin, was among the dead. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied government claims, telling VOA that fighting was still raging in the district and rejected as “enemy propaganda” the claim that Fasihuddin had been killed. It was not possible to verify from independent sources claims made by either side.

Badakhshan borders three neighbors of Afghanistan, including China, Pakistan and Tajikistan.

The Taliban has, meanwhile, continued attacks in surrounding provinces of Kunduz, Takhar and Baghlan, overrunning new territory and killing scores of government forces.

Mujahid said in a statement Saturday that Taliban fighters have besieged Qala Zal district center in Kunduz a day after capturing nearby Khanabad district. He said the insurgents have also made advances in Baghlan’s capital, Pul-e-Khumri, tightening days of siege around the city.

Afghan officials have so far not offered any comments on Taliban battlefield claims.

Heavy fighting, meanwhile, has been raging in western Farah province near the Iranian border. Both Afghan officials and the Taliban have made conflicting claims about the ongoing fighting in the provincial capital, also named Farah.

On Thursday, a Taliban suicide car bomber attacked a foreign military convoy in the national capital of Kabul, killing more than a dozen people. An American soldier and a Romanian soldier were also among the dead, bringing the total number of U.S. military fatalities this year to 16.

Controversy over prospective peace deal

Taliban and American negotiators say they have drafted a framework agreement after nearly yearlong negotiations that could lead to withdrawal of all U.S.-led NATO troops from Afghanistan in return for guarantees the Islamic insurgents will not allow transnational militant groups to use the country again for international terrorism.

The Taliban said Friday its negotiators have over the past two days held fresh meetings in Qatar with U.S. chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad accompanied by American commander of international forces, Army General Scott Miller, in Afghanistan.

“Both meetings were positive and resulted in good progress,” said insurgent political spokesman Suhail Shaheen without discussing further details.

Shaheen told VOA “not a single soldier” from U.S. and NATO missions will stay in the country under the withdrawal timetable outlined in the framework agreement with American negotiators. In return, he said, the Taliban has promised not to allow anyone to use Afghan soil against other countries. Shaheen, however, would not disclose the deadline for foreign troops to leave Afghanistan.

Khalilzad told an Afghan television station earlier this week the deal finalized with the Taliban “in principle” will have to be approved by U.S. President Donald Trump before it is signed. The document, he said, would require 5,000 American troops to leave five Afghan bases within 135 days.

However, the Afghan-born American diplomat would not say when the residual roughly 8,600-member U.S. military force will withdraw from the country. He stressed that the Taliban will also be required to participate in intra-Afghan negotiations over a permanent ceasefire and the political future of the turmoil-hit country.

The Afghan government, however, has expressed serious reservations and concerns over the perspective U.S.-Taliban deal after Khalilzad discussed its “key details” with President Ashraf Ghani during his visit to Kabul earlier this week.

Presidential aide Waheed Omar told reporters Friday the government believes the framework agreement does not effectively bind the Taliban to abide by their commitments. He said Afghanistan needs a permanent, not temporary, peace to avert another war in the country. Omar did not elaborate further.

…

A high-level U.S. defense delegation is scheduled to visit Pakistan and Afghanistan next week.  Randall Schriver, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, made the announcement Thursday evening at the Pakistani embassy in Washington. Schriver, appointed to his current position by President Donald Trump in January 2018, attended the embassy’s annual celebration of Pakistan’s Defense Day.  
 
Shriver said his intent “and our team’s intent, is to be aspirational,” saying the parties will be “talking about where we can go in the future, how we can strengthen and improve cooperation, all the challenges notwithstanding.”
 
Shriver cited Pakistan’s contribution in several of the U.S.-led security initiatives, citing “the very important work in trying to achieve peace in Afghanistan,” as well as Pakistan’s participation in a maritime security initiative known as Combined Task Force 150, a multi-nation effort led by the United States designed to “deter, disrupt and defeat attempts by international terrorist organizations” that seek to use the maritime domain as venues for attack or as a means to transport personnel, weapons and other materials.  CTF 150 is based in Bahrain.

 
While U.S. and Pakistan relations, including, if not especially, military relations, have been turbulent in recent years, both sides seemed ready to look at the positive as Schriver announced his plans to visit Islamabad.  Shriver cited “the shared sacrifices we’ve made as our two countries have been involved in the long war on terror,” adding “we have strong foundation for this relationship” and “we jealously guard our special role in this relationship between our defense establishments and our militaries; we think it is one of the strongest pillars in the foundation for this relationship.”
 
Schriver described ongoing negotiations with the Taliban as being “at a critical junction,” stating “we’re hopeful but we have not crossed the finish line yet,” adding “we appreciate everything Pakistan has done to get us to this point.”
 
For his part, Pakistani ambassador to the United States Asad M. Khan told VOA that “this will be the highest exchange on the defense side after the prime minister’s visit, it is significant; as the assistant secretary himself said, defense is a key pillar of the relationship; I’m sure his visit will provide a good opportunity to both sides to review where we stand on the defense relationship and what more can be done.”  Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan paid a high-profile visit to Washington and met with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office in July.  Asked if Schriver would be meeting with Khan while in Islamabad, Khan replied that “I still don’t have all the details of the program; he’s an important visitor, we will try to get as many meetings as we can.”

 Nolan Peterson, an incoming visiting fellow in unconventional warfare at the Heritage Foundation whose exclusive interview with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Afghanistan and Iran was published in The Daily Signal on Friday, told VOA in a phone interview that Schriver’s trip signals U.S. intention to stay engaged and maintain a strategic interest in the region even as talks are ongoing that could result in significant U.S. troop drawdown from Afghanistan.  
 
That interest, he said, also has to do with “not letting China have free reign” in the region as the latter seeks to deepen its footprint through the “One Belt, One Road” economic and strategic initiative.
 
Peterson also pointed out that although the United States has not openly taken sides on the tension between Pakistan and India surrounding the Kashmir region, Pakistan “is going to be excited about having any U.S. visits,” which he thinks will “certainly play in their favor.”  “Anytime a visiting U.S. official arrives in a country, countries like to use that as evidence that they’re being supported by the U.S.”
 
Ultimately, U.S. official visits to foreign capitals are designed to “keep us engaged and show the countries that we care,” Peterson said.
 
Pentagon officials told VOA that in addition to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Schriver will also be visiting Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on his trip next week.
 
Meanwhile, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson on Friday announced that China’s foreign minister Wang Yi will lead a delegation to Islamabad from September 7-10 for the third trilateral dialogue between China, Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as visits to Pakistan and Nepal.  Wang’s visit, the spokesperson said, is designed to further solidify bilateral friendship and mutual trust, and tighten the shared “common fate” between the two countries, including pushing for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to move forward “in a high quality manner.”

…

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee is planning to vote to determine the parameters for conducting an impeachment probe of President Donald Trump.

Politico first reported the development, saying its report was based on “multiple sources briefed on the discussions.”

The committee is expected to vote on the details next week.

A draft of the resolution is expected to be released Monday morning, according to Politico.

The article said Democrats are “hopeful that explicitly defining their impeachment inquiry will heighten their leverage to compel testimony from witnesses.”

It is doubtful, however, that the probe will lead to any charges against the president.

Articles of impeachment would have to be voted on by the full House and it is doubtful that the Republican Senate would vote to remove the president from office.  

Various legislative committees are looking into a number of matters concerning the president, including his failure to release his tax returns, his payment of hush money to stop embarrassing stories becoming public, and the spending of taxpayer money at the president’s hotels and properties.

…

A major prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine is underway — with multiple reports citing the transfer of prisoners out of Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison as well as the arrival of a Ukrainian state-emblemed plane to Vnukovo airport in the Russian capital Saturday morning.  

While the exact number, list, and timing of the exchange is not yet publicly known, the leaders of both countries have insisted a significant exchange was imminent in recent days.  

“We will finalize our talks on the exchange, and I think it will be rather large-scale,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin while addressing the issue at an economic forum in the far eastern city of Vladivostok on Thursday.  

“And also it will also be a good step forward toward the normalization” of relations, added Putin.

Putin’s comments followed Ukraine’s release of Volodymyr Tsemakh, a former commander of Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, by a court in Kyiv on Thursday.  

The release was not without controversy: Ukrainian security services have identified Tsemakh as a key witness to the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which was shot down over east Ukraine in July of 2014, killing all 298 people aboard.

Dutch prosecutors investigating the tragedy had urged the government in Kyiv to prevent Tsemakh’s extradition, saying he is “a person of interest” in their work.

Yet recently elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy came to power promising to bring Ukrainian prisoners in Russia home and end the conflict in East Ukraine.

In July, Putin and Zelenskiy held their first phone talks since the new Ukrainian leader took office.

At the time, a Kremlin spokesman said the two leaders discussed a stalled peace agreement for Ukraine’s Donbas region as well as the possibility of prisoner exchanges “from both sides.”

…