WASHINGTON: Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo wrote in a book published Tuesday that India and Pakistan came close to nuclear war in 2019 and that US intervention prevented escalation.
“I do not think the world properly knows just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration in February 2019,” the likely future presidential contender wrote in “Never Give an Inch,” his memoir of his time as Donald Trump’s top diplomat and earlier CIA chief.
India in February 2019 broke precedent by launching airstrikes inside Pakistani territory after blaming a militant group there for a suicide bombing that killed 41 Indian paramilitary soldiers in the flashpoint Kashmir region. Pakistan shot down an Indian warplane, capturing the pilot.
Pompeo, who was in Hanoi for a summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said he was woken up with an urgent call from a senior Indian official.
“He believed the Pakistanis had begun to prepare their nuclear weapons for a strike. India, he informed me, was contemplating its own escalation,” Pompeo wrote.
“I asked him to do nothing and give us a minute to sort things out,” Pompeo said.
Pompeo said that US diplomats convinced both India and Pakistan that neither was preparing to go nuclear.
“No other nation could have done what we did that night to avoid a horrible outcome,” Pompeo wrote.
Pompeo, who wrote that Pakistan “probably enabled” the Kashmir attack, said he spoke to “the actual leader of Pakistan,” then army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, in an allusion to the weakness of civilian governments.
Pompeo at the time publicly defended India’s right to act. In his book, Pompeo spoke highly of India and, unlike officials in New Delhi, made no secret of his desire to ally with the South Asian democracy “to counteract Chinese aggression.”
India, followed by Pakistan, tested nuclear bombs in 1998, a watershed moment. Then-president US Bill Clinton later famously said that Kashmir, divided between the two nations, was “the most dangerous place in the world.”
Pompeo writes extensively in the book of his diplomacy with Kim Jong Un, which included preparing three meetings between the young totalitarian leader and Trump.
He recalled a chilling first conversation as he flew into Pyongyang in March 2018 on a clandestine trip as CIA director.
“’I didn’t think you’d show up. I know you’ve been trying to kill me,’” Pompeo quotes Kim as telling him.
“I decided to lean in with a little humor of my own: ‘Mr. Chairman, I’m still trying (to) kill you.’“
But Pompeo described a budding understanding with Kim as the Trump administration offered incentives to lower tension.
Pointing to Kim’s smoking habit, Pompeo wrote that he told Kim he would take him to “the nicest beach in Miami and smoke the best Cubanos in the world. He told me, ‘I already have a great relationship with the Castros.’ Of course, he did.”
As for their substantive conversation, Pompeo said Kim spoke candidly on concerns about China, usually viewed as North Korea’s main ally.
Told that China believes North Korea wants US forces out of South Korea, “Kim laughed and pounded on the table in sheer joy, exclaiming that the Chinese were liars.”
Kim “said that he needed the Americans in South Korea to protect him from the CCP, and that the CCP needs the Americans out so they can treat the peninsula like Tibet and Xinjiang,” Pompeo wrote, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.
Pompeo became known for his hawkish stance on China, controversially accusing Beijing of spreading the “Wuhan virus,” in a derogatory reference to Covid-19.
He said that Trump told him with an epithet that Chinese President Xi Jinping “hates you” and asked Pompeo to “shut the hell up for a while” as the United States needed health supplies from China.
“I was not happy that the president had tweeted that the CCP was doing a good job on the virus and praised Xi,” Pompeo said.
“But I understood the circumstances — we needed health equipment and were at the CCP’s mercy for it. I worked for the president, and I would bide my time.”
Pompeo has not ruled out running against Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, although early polls show little support for Pompeo.
Pompeo says US averted nuclear war between India, Pakistan
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Pompeo says US averted nuclear war between India, Pakistan
- Pompeo writes extensively in the book of his diplomacy with Kim Jong Un, which included preparing three meetings between the young totalitarian leader and Trump
Dozens detained at Paris pro-Palestinian university protest
- Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said there would never be a right to disrupt France’s universities with such protests
- Police acted after about 100 students had been occupying a lecture theater for two hours
Those arrested in the police operation on Tuesday night were being held for a variety of public order offenses, said the statement.
They include wilful damage, rebellion, violence against a person holding public authority, intrusion into an education establishment and holding a meeting designed to disrupt order. Some are also being held for participation in a group with a view to preparing violence or damage to property.
They can be held for an initial 24 hours, which can then be extended another 24 hours.
The day before police moved in, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said there would never be a right to disrupt France’s universities with such protests.
Police acted after about 100 students had been occupying a lecture theater for two hours in “solidarity” with the people of Gaza, an AFP journalist on site noted.
Tuesday night’s police operation at the Sorbonne — and at another university on Paris’s Left Bank, Science Po university — followed interventions to end similar protests at the end of April.
Students at universities in several European countries have followed the actions on US campuses where demonstrators have occupied halls and facilities to demand an end to partnerships with Israeli institutions because of Israel’s punishing assault on Gaza.
Police have also intervened to clear campuses in the United States, Netherlands and Switzerland.
Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7 attacked southern Israel, resulting in the deaths of about 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel estimates that 129 hostages seized on October 7, out of the 253 taken, are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,789 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run besieged Palestinian territory.
First Bangladeshi pilgrims ready to depart for Hajj
- The country’s quota this year is 127,000 pilgrims
- First flight leaves for Saudi Arabia on Thursday
DHAKA: Thousands of Bangladeshis are going to become some of the earliest Hajj pilgrims to arrive in Saudi Arabia this year, with the first batch scheduled to fly to Jeddah on Thursday.
This year, the Hajj is expected to start on June 14 and end on June 19.
While the pilgrimage itself can be performed over five or six days, pilgrims often arrive early, knowing that it may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fulfill their religious duty.
The first Hajj flight carrying 419 pilgrims is scheduled to leave for Jeddah from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka on Thursday morning.
“Our pilgrims will be the first batch of Hajj pilgrims from around the world who will arrive in the Kingdom,” Mohammad Matiul Islam, additional secretary at the Ministry of Religious Affairs, told Arab News.
“Some pilgrims opt to travel earlier to the holy land, as it gives them spiritual peace. It’s the pilgrims’ choice to determine their time of travel.”
This year, Saudi Arabia granted Bangladesh a quota of 127,000 pilgrims to perform the spiritual journey that is one of the five pillars of Islam. Because of the rising cost of airfares to the Middle East, fewer Bangladeshis than expected will be able to go.
Bangladesh, one of the most populous Muslim-majority countries, also struggled to meet the quota in 2023, when the minimum government rate for Hajj was $6,000.
To prevent the same scenario during the 2024 pilgrimage season, the Bangladeshi government reduced the cost by $1,000, but high inflation at home prevented a third of prospective pilgrims from registering.
“As we fell short of meeting the number, a quota of 41,000 is surrendered to Saudi Arabia,” Islam said. “The surrendering of this (remaining slots) will not affect the receiving of our Hajj quota next year.”
Saudi visa registration for Bangladeshis will end on Saturday, and most of them will be departing over the next few weeks from Dhaka, where they will be assisted by Saudi authorities under the flagship Makkah Route initiative.
The pre-travel program was launched by the Kingdom in 2019 to help pilgrims to meet all the visa, customs and health requirements at their airport of origin, and save them long hours of waiting before and upon arrival in Saudi Arabia.
From Wednesday, those flying in the next few days can wait for departure at a special Hajj camp near the airport in Dhaka.
“While staying at the Hajj camp, the pilgrims have their Bangladeshi immigration part done. Also, a part of Saudi immigration is being done here as the pilgrims leave their luggage here to Makkah Route authorities,” Islam said.
“The air-conditioned accommodation here is free of cost for the pilgrims ... We suggest the pilgrims from outside Dhaka be at the Hajj camp two days before their flight. The camp can hold more than 5,000 pilgrims at a time.”
Russia warns French troops legitimate targets if they are sent to Ukraine
- French president Emmanuel Macron caused controversy in February by saying he could not rule out the deployment of ground troops in Ukraine in the future
MOSCOW: Russia warned France on Wednesday that if President Emmanuel Macron sent troops to Ukraine then they would be seen as legitimate targets by the Russian military.
Macron caused controversy in February by saying he could not rule out the deployment of ground troops in Ukraine in the future. The French leader warned that if Russia wins in Ukraine then Europe’s credibility will be reduced to zero.
“It is characteristic that Macron himself explains this rhetoric with the desire to create some kind of ‘strategic uncertainty’ for Russia,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters.
“We have to disappoint him — for us the situation looks more than certain,” Zakharova said.
“If the French appear in the conflict zone, they will inevitably become targets for the Russian armed forces. It seems to me that Paris already has proof of this.”
Zakharova said Russia was already seeing growing numbers of French nationals among those killed in Ukraine.
Russia said on Monday it would practice the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as part of a military exercise after what the Moscow said were threats from France, Britain and the United States.
AstraZeneca says withdraws Covid vaccine ‘for commercial reasons’
LONDON: British drugmaker AstraZeneca said Wednesday that it has withdrawn its Covid vaccine Vaxzevria, one of the first produced in the pandemic, citing “commercial reasons” and a surplus of updated jabs.
“As multiple, variant Covid-19 vaccines have since been developed there is a surplus of available updated vaccines. This has led to a decline in demand for Vaxzevria, which is no longer being manufactured or supplied,” an AstraZeneca spokeperson said.
