MUSLIM WORLD

Afghanistan: Pakistan Stake in Taliban Victory

Turkey’s has more influence with Uzbeks in Central Asia. While the Iranians favour an Islamic dispensation led by shiite forces, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are identified with Taliban Dostum wants Turkish help in effecting a reconciliation with Malik his former colleague.

It is a defensive manoeuvre intended to preserve the northern areas from the (Taliban) regime rather than trying to take over the whole country.

Some (strategists) think that the US would be only too glad to wee northern Afghanistan become a new buffer, if the rest of Afghanistan cannot remain so. That would seem to accord with the wishers of Russians, who are displeased with the Taliban and fear their presence on the Amu River or their hobnobbing with either Turkmenistan or Tajikistan. The Americans would surely want to concede such a Russian and Central Asian wish, if they can help ensure it. That would permanently divide Afghanistan.

Prof. Gangkocsky, the former director of Moscow's Oriental Institute insisted that an Islamic regime in Kabul would run totally counter to all the assumptions and objectives of great power policies regarding the region that wanted to keep Afghanistan a neutral buffer. This is vital for Moscow even after the collapse of Soviet Union.

The recent development in Afghanistan have proved one point-Pakistan is now stuck with Taliban. Their defeat will have devastating effect and will undo all that Pakistan has so far endeavoured to accomplish. But the economic costs of having to ensure the survival of Taliban will be phenomenal.

Most of Afghan population will have to be kept supplied with essential goods even if the payment for them may be available from the foreign aid received by Taliban. The effort to support the Taliban is likely to put strain on the resources of the country, not to mention its diplomatic cost.

Taliban in origin were a Pakistani phenomenon.

They were, and to an extent remain, under the Pakistani political tutelage. The political forces that had willed them into being and becoming what they are, in the pursuit of their power aims, retrain the Taliban guns on Islamabad itself ... The diplomatic and political costs for Pakistan, which went broke during the last two years in Afghanistan or so, include serious rifts in its relationship with some of its long-term allies. They have protested. The Chinese take a dim view of Taliban. Iran has been more or less alienated from Pakistan. Turkey is distinctly cool and distant. The unhappiness of India with Taliban is also a known factor.

But playing for higher stakes, Islamabad seems to have felt justified in ignoring Indian wishes because, should its strategy succeed, it will affect a sea change in Afghanistan and everyone else would have to adjust to the new situation.

The hardliners in Islamabad have calculated that the happiness in Riyadh will be a compensation enough for all the other costs. The position of the United States has been peculiar and far more flexible than many people had expected because of their loudly-expressed displeasure with Islamic fundamentalism.

There is a concrete US interest: proposed oil and gas pipelines from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to India are to be built by UNOCOL, an American oil giant. Many in Islamabad seem to have calculated that this would counter the US displeasure. But what Islamabad did not seem to have reckoned (is) that the Americans would in deference to a lot of factors concerning Russia and Central Asia, happily countenance an autonomous or independent northern Afghanistan while the test of Afghanistan might come under the sway of Taliban. But a serious setback to Taliban in the north can have incalculable consequences.   

(Source: The Business Times)

Egypt: Symposium on Islam and the West

An international symposium in latę April 1997 on the subject "Development of Relations between Islam and West" was organised at Kadhy Ayadh University in Marakesh by the National Council of Arab Culture, North-South Dialogue Institute of Geneva and the University. Held in the light of views, concepts and background of current events, it recommended creating permanent mechanisms to encourage dialogue between Islam and the West not only to rebuild relations but also to expand the (dimension of) dialogue. This symposium was attended by scholars from the Muslim world and Europe, who presented 22 papers.

Egypt: International Conference on Islam and the West

An International Conference on Islam and the West was held at Cairo on 13-16 July, 1997. The 4-day conference, "Islam and West: the past, present and future" was organised by the Egyptian, Ministry of Awqaf and the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs.

The Conference was attended by about 180 scholars and officials from over 80 countries. In his message, President Hosni Mubarak urged closer ties between the Muslim and Western worlds, decrying the view of some Westerners that after the fall of Communism, Islam (constituted a threat to) and become the new enemy of the Western culture.

Egypt's Minister of Religious Endowments Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq said that the conference's aim was to prove wrong the thesis that a clash was inevitable between the two culture . A leading Egyptian Islamic scholar, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, warned that Muslims would respond with animosity if they were treated as enemies.                                                          

(Source: The Muslim World, 26 July, 1997)