Former ISI chief Durrani guilty of violating military code of conduct
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Army on Friday held spy agency ISI’S former chief Asad Durrani guilty of violating military code of conduct by co-authoring a book with India’s former intelligence head and punished him by stopping his pension and other benefits.
Durrani, who headed the ISI agency from 1990-1992, along with former RAW chief A S Dulat published the book The Spy Chronicles: RAW, ISI and the Illusion of Peace in India.
The Pakistan Army had ordered a court of inquiry against Durrani over the book in which the two former spy chiefs touched upon some thorny issues including terrorism, particularly the Mumbai attack, Kashmir and the influence of intelligence agencies.
Army spokesman Asif Ghafoor, during a media briefing, said Durrani was a former senior officer who held key positions and his conduct should have been different.
“Asad Durrani has been found of guilty of violating military code of conduct... His pension and related benefits have been stopped. He is no more entitled for the benefits which a retired officer is entitled.”
In another development, Pakistan’s military is conducting court-martial proceedings against two senior officers on charges of espionage, a spokesman said on Friday, without giving details.
“The Army chief has ordered their court martial,” Ghafoor told reporters, adding that the two were individual cases.
He gave no details on the identity or rank of the officers. WASHINGTON: Ever since he met Kim Jong Un in Singapore last year, US President Donald Trump has shown a tendency the North Korean leader may exploit - making unexpected concessions in one-on-one meetings.
There was the December phone call with Turkey’s president, when Trump surprised his own aides by suddenly agreeing to pull troops out of Syria. And last year’s press meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, when Trump dismissed his own intelligence community’s findings on Russian hacking.
Heading into next week’s summit with Kim in Hanoi, the president’s top advisers will seek to ensure no last-minute giveaways happen this time around. But for North Korea, the US president’s habit of making concessions on the fly presents an opportunity that’s likely to lead negotiators from Pyongyang to disregard Trump’s staff to focus on what he might offer.
“They do look to get President Trump in a room and see what they might get out of him,” said Christopher Hill, the North Korea negotiator under ex-president George W Bush. “If Singapore is any indication, the president seeks to want to negotiate everything himself.”
A senior Trump administration official said North Korean officials have so far given little away in their meetings with the top US envoy for the talks. The official said the fear is that Kim will make an offer to Trump that sounds good at the moment.
Those fears have focused on the fate of about 30,000 US troops stationed in South Korea. Kim could seek to exploit Trump’s own professed distaste for overseas deployments to extract a commitment to withdraw some or all of them as part of a deal to secure a peace agreement.