Helpless US President Barack Hussein Obama!

Not without reasons President Barack Obama sheds in part his US leadership role of South Asia for China.With an economy in recession and financial system in tatters, US owes China trillions of dollars that the latter holds in Treasury bonds .Furthermore, having acquired an insider vision in the financial system,China threatens to damage the dollar’s imperialistic sways by floating SDR (Special Drawing Rights) and alternative basket of currencies.

But the US misses the crucial point .It has actually been nailed down in South and West Asia.In Iraq, Afghanistan and Af-Pak region, owing to its erroneous appreciation and lack of knowledge of Topography, traditional cultures ,regional environs and war scenarios of the involved area of operation .Further, the military operations were carried out ineptly without properly setting out aims and goals in a clear manner .Also US was wooed deceitfully by Pakistan to lead the operations to Afghanistan through a lawless tribal area (FATA) inhabited by Pashtuns having historical and strong ethnic ties with the Pashtun population of Afghanistan on the other side of the Durrand Line.There was thus an all round failure of military and political leaders of wars that were picked up haphazardly.

Nuclear talks at final stages

After the UN-drafted nuclear deal mainly clears the deadlock over Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme ,the focus of talks has shifted to the negotiations and discussion over further enrichment of the 1200 kg of low enriched uranium for turning it into nuclear fuel for reactor in Tehran.According to the draft-deal Iran would send most of its low enriched uranium abroad by the end of the year for further enrichment to turn it into fuel.

This has created deep misgivings in Iran over parting with the bulk of its Low enriched uranium for want of guarantee for the return of nuclear fuel and other concerns.Iranian Ambassador to IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh stressing the need for more talks says “ in order to ensure that our technical concerns and especially the issue of the guarantee of the fuel supply, are taken into consideration”,We are ready for the next round of technical discussions at the IAEA headquarters.

Already President Ahmadinejad speaking on another occasion deplored the western governments for failing to fulfill their earlier contracts saying “We expect the western governments to fulfill their commitments.There are contracts whose costs we have paid thirty years .These and earlier contracts should be implemented”.

With regard to IAEA proposals that entails further enrichment of low enrichment uranium abroad at Russia or Turkey ,Tehran has made a proposal that calls for international arms inspectors to take custody of much of their fuel ,but keep it on Kish,a Persian Gulf resort island that is a part of Iran .Russian ambassador in Iran Alexander Sadovinko called for “rapid settlement of Iran’s nuclear issue as a matter of importance for the security and stability of the region and contributing to the regional peace.”The Tehran Research Reactor is used for the purpose of producing radio isotopes to be used in cancer treatment by over 200 hospitals in Iran.

Iranian Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh stressed that IAEA is obliged to carry out the task of supplying nuclear fuel based on clauses I and II of its charter adding that “We are ready to purchase our required fuel under supervision of IAEA in the same method that we had already purchased it from Argentina 30 years ago”.

As Obama’s administration prepares to tackle Afghanistan and Iraq issue on priority basis an early finalization of Iran’s nuclear issue with regard to its final nitty-gritty mechanism appears to be in sight.

History haunts normalization process

As Turkey and Armenia take steps to normalize their relations ,century old bitter memories around killings of hundred of thousands of Armenians by the Ottoman Troops in 1915 World War I continues to haunt the process of normalization..

Armenians have all along been struggling to get these largescale killings recognized internationally as genocide and more than 20 countries have done so. But Turkey though admitting that many Armenians were killed,denies any genocide holding that these were part of widespread fighting during the World War .Armenians on the other hand claim these deaths as genocide since they were deported en masse from eastern Anatolia to the Syrian desert and elsewhere and died from starvation or disease as well as killed by the troops.

The agreement envisaging the process of normalization was signed in Zurich, Switzerland on 11 October 2009 after months of Swiss-mediated talks in a ceremony attended by US Secretary of Statae Hillary Clinton,Russian and French Foreign Ministers and Javier Solana from the European Union.The agreement that still needs parliamentary approval in Turkey and Armenia,also calls for a joint commission of independent historians to study the genocide issue.

Several thousand people protested in Armenian capital Yerevan,saying that Turkey should recognize the 1915 killingsas genocide before ties are restored with Vahan Hovanissyan,a member of Parliament contending that “ The international recognition of the Armenian genocide will be hindered by this signature or ratification’.

Another aspect of this agreement allows the opening of the shared border between he two countries that was closed by Turkey in 1993 because of its war with Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno- Karabakh and the Armenians seem to feel their country has been too isolated since the Turkish border closed in 1993 and are therefore ready for it to reopen. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's commented that "We want all the borders to be opened at the same time..., but as long as Armenia has not withdrawn from Azerbaijani territory that it is occupying, Turkey cannot have a positive attitude on this subject."