Pakistan PM appoints new head of powerful spy agency
DAMASCUS, March 10, (AFP) - Syrian President Bashar alAssad promised international envoy Kofi Annan today that he would back any “honest” peace bid but warned dialogue would fail if “terrorist groups” remained.
In Cairo, meanwhile, Russian and Arab foreign ministers called for an end to the violence in Syria “whatever its source,” as they struggled to find common ground on ways to resolve the conflict.
Syrian state television said there was a “positive atmosphere” to the Damascus meeting between Assad and the former UN chief, on his first visit since being named United NationsArab League envoy on the conflict.
“Syria is ready to bring success to any honest bid to find a solution,” the official SANA news agency quoted Assad as telling Annan.
But “no dialogue or political process can succeed as long as there are terrorist groups that are working to sow chaos and destabilise the country by attacking civilians and soldiers,” he added.
Annan, quoted by SANA, rejected foreign interference in Syria's affairs and said he wanted to work with the Syrian government “to launch a dialogue within the framework of a political process to restore stability.”the meeting came against a backdrop of fierce fighting between troops and rebel fighters, particularly in the northwestern province of Idlib, close to the border with Turkey, where the Free Syrian Army has been especially active.
Troops killed 16 rebels in an ambush in the province on Saturday while the rebels killed four soldiers and captured five, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Nationwide, 31 people were killed, the Britain-based watchdog said, adding to a death toll that had already topped 8,500 since protests against Assad's regime erupted last March.
Annan has the support of Damascus allies Beijing and Moscow and his mission has been welcomed by both the Syrian government and the opposition. But Russia said its Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made clear to Annan at a meeting in Cairo that Moscow was opposed to “crude interference” in Syria's affairs.
“A particular emphasis was placed on the inadmissibility of trampling on international legal norms, including through crude interference in Syria's internal affairs,” the foreign ministry in Moscow said.
Russia's stance drew an angry response from Gulf states when Lavrov joined the Arab foreign ministers in Cairo.
Saudi Arabia's Saud al-faisal accused Moscow of giving Damascus a “licence to extend its brutal practices against the Syrian people, without compassion or mercy.”and Qatar's Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim AlThani voiced exasperation with the position of Russia and China, saying the killing of civilians in Syria amounted to “genocide” and that a ceasefire was “not enough.””our patience and the patience of the world has run out,” he said.
Current UN chief Ban Kimoon said Annan would demand an immediate end to the violence and access for aid agencies to besieged protest cities to evacuate casualties and provide desperately needed relief supplies to civilians trapped by the fighting.
ISLAMABAD, March 10 (Reuters) - Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has appointed a new director-general of the country's powerful spy agency, Gilani's office said in a statement.
“The prime minister has appointed Lieutenant-general Zaheer-ul-islam as the new DG-ISI”, the statement said, referring to the Directorate of Inter-services Intelligence (ISI).
Islam is the commander of the V Corps, one of the most important in the army and based in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and its commercial hub.
He takes over from Lieutenant-general Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who was appointed in 2008, and who oversaw some of the stormiest times in the U.s.-pakistan relationship.
Pasha's departure is likely to come as a relief to the American intelligence community which had a working, if frosty, relationship with him. That relationship became more difficult after U.S. special forces found and killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a town about a twohour drive from the ISI'S Islamabad headquarters in May last year.
Bin Laden's presence in Pakistan, by some accounts for up to five years, raised suspicions in Washington that Pakistan's main spy agency had been doing business with, or sheltering, America's number one enemy.