Agreements/MoUs signed during various visits in the period October 2011 to March 2012

International and Bilateral Issues

Call for urgent action on Somalia

• Leading nations, including India, on Thursday agreed that the international community must respond urgently to the crisis in Somalia, described by Prime Minister David Cameron as the “world's worst failed state”, blighted by two decades of civil war and famine and caught up in a vortex of terrorism, piracy and famine.
• Somalia's President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed wanted an end to the arms embargo.

Pakistan offers amnesty to Baloch leaders in exile

• In a bid to address the widespread disenchantment within Balochistan, Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Thursday offered to drop all cases against Baloch leaders who have left the country and are spearheading the movement for independence from overseas.
• Earlier in the day, Pakistan claimed to have secured across-the-floor assurance from Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Congress that both parties were opposed to the resolution introduced by a Congressman seeking the right of self-determination for the Baloch people.
• The matter came up as the Prime Minister raised the issue that has incensed the political class and forced the media to break its silence on Balochistan, which has been festering since 2002 amid growing calls for independence.

China wants to partner India in piracy fight

• China has said it wants to work with India and other countries to boost maritime cooperation, particularly with regard to coordinating naval escorts in the Indian Ocean to fight piracy.
• Chinese officials said they were particularly keen to increase coordination with the Indian navy, as naval officials from 20 countries met in the eastern port city of Nanjing on Thursday at the start of a first-of-its-kind two-day international initiative on ocean escorts, hosted by the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).
• the countries had agreed to follow an integrated escort schedule, arranged on a quarterly basis, with the schedule-making being led by “a reference country” chosen every quarter. China, as the first reference country, had already proposed a schedule, and other countries involved in the operation would formulate their schedules accordingly
• The PLAN has become increasingly active in escort missions in the Gulf of Aden, protecting Chinese vessels on a crucial shipping route on which China's energy imports depend. The PLAN also carried out a first of its kind operation last year in evacuating Chinese citizens out of Libya, underscoring its increasing willingness, and capability, to engage in operations beyond China's frontiers, although the country has a long-standing policy of not sending its military overseas.

International and Bilateral Issues

As Italy pushes for “midway formula,” India swears by court

• New Delhi has resisted pressure from Rome for a “midway formula,” telling that South Block will not be able to intervene because the matter had reached the courts which were “fair and independent.”
• Rome has made three basic arguments: Italy has a provision for extra-territorial application of its laws; United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) provides for prosecution in the home country; and vessels have the right to fire at pirates.
• The Ministry of External Affairs counters these by saying Indian laws, too, have a provision for extra-territorial application; the relevant UNCLOS article applies to naval vessels and, that too, in cases of collision; and only naval vessels have the right to fire at pirates, but in this incident, off the Kerala coast, armed fishermen were shot at in an area with no history of piracy.

International and Bilateral Issues

Xi: recognise “one-state” policy

• Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping, on a high-profile tour of the United States has had a slew of unprecedented honours heaped upon him by Washington. Yet he has stood firm in articulating some of China's positions on its core national interests — most significantly its insistence that the U.S. respect its “one-state policy” regarding the territories of Taiwan and Tibet.
• Mr. Xi was quoted as saying he hoped that the U.S. would “truly honour” its commitments to recognising the territories as part of the People's Republic of China.

Plan was to attack Israelis, says Thailand

• Three Iranians detained after accidentally setting off explosives in Bangkok were planning to attack Israeli diplomats, said Thailand's top policeman
• The allegation came after days of strong accusations by Israel that Iran was behind the botched plot as well as two others in India and the former Soviet republic of Georgia this week.

  • Iran has denied the charges.
• Iran has blamed the Jewish state for the recent killings of Iranian atomic scientists and has denied responsibility for all three bomb plots
• The plot in Bangkok was discovered on Tuesday only by accident, when explosives stored in a house occupied by several Iranian men blew up by mistake.
• A Bangkok court has approved arrest warrants for all three suspects, as well as an Iranian woman named Leila Rohani who rented the destroyed house.

  • However, Ms. Rohani has left Thailand and is now in Tehran

Pakistani team coming next month to discuss petro pipelines

• In a development that is likely to take economic cooperation and people-to-people exchange to a new level, a high-level Pakistani delegation is likely to visit India next month to discuss building of pipelines from Panipat, Mathura and Bhatinda for transporting petroleum products and petrochemical by-products to Pakistan.
• IOC, which made a big participation in the India Show in Lahore, has offered to lay the pipelines.
• Pakistan's refining capacity meets only half of the country's domestic requirement.

  • While Pakistan allowed diesel imports from India, it banned the import of petrol and other petroleum products.
  • By allowing India to dock petrol and petroleum products, Pakistan's main advantage will be the savings in freight cost since several refineries in India are located close to the border

China rejects Pillai's charge

• China on Thursday rejected the allegations by the former Home Secretary, G.K. Pillai, that it was providing tacit support to insurgent groups in India's northeast, saying the claims were “inconsistent with facts.”
• Mr. Pillai was quoted as saying in recent media reports that India had presented evidence to China of ULFA (United Liberation Front of Asom) chief Paresh Barua's travels to the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan, including details of his airline tickets.
• Indian officials have also said some insurgent groups in the northeast were procuring arms from manufacturers in southwestern China.

International and Bilateral Issues

Honduras prison fire kills hundreds

• At least 300 prisoners have been killed after a massive fire swept through a jail in Honduras, officials say.
• Many victims were burned or suffocated to death in their cells in Comayagua, north of the capital Tegucigalpa.
• Honduran President Lobo pledged a "full and transparent" investigation into the "lamentable and unacceptable" tragedy.
• "We couldn't get them out because we didn't have the keys and couldn't find the guards who had them," he said.
• "We have two hypotheses. One is that a prisoner set fire to a mattress and the other one is that there was a short-circuit in the electrical system,"
• Prisons in Honduras, which has the world's highest murder rate, are often seriously overcrowded and hold many gang members.

NATO regrets Afghan airstrike

• The U.S.-led military coalition said on Wednesday that it regretted the killing of eight civilians in a NATO airstrike this month in eastern Afghanistan.
• “The aircraft dropped two bombs on the group that we believed to be an imminent threat to our people,” Brigadier-General Boone told reporters in Kabul.

Waheed names Vice-President

• Maldivian President Waheed Hasan Manik named a resort owner of no claimed political affiliation, Mohamed Waheeduddin, as his Vice-President, even as Foreign Secretary Ranjan K. Mathai rushed to Male to hold urgent consultation with all stakeholders to find a way forward.
• President Dr. Waheed had made it clear to all parties in the coalition that he wanted to pick a Vice-President of his choice to steer clear of the mistakes the former President, Mohamed Nasheed, made

Bashir next envoy to India?

• Pakistan's Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir is tipped to become the next High Commissioner to India after he retires in early March.
• The government had named Pakistan's Ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg Jalil Abbas Jilani as the next Foreign Secretary. Mr. Jilani — who had served in India between 1999 and 2003 — was expelled by New Delhi along with four other officials of the Pakistan High Commission for allegedly funding the Hurriyat Conference.

Syrian referendum on single-party rule

• Syria's President has decreed to hold a referendum later this month for a new Constitution that would effectively end nearly 50 years of single party rule, said state media
• Under the new charter, freedom is “a sacred right” and “the people will govern the people” in a multi-party democratic system based on Islamic law
• The proposed Constitution does away with Article 8 of the old charter which declared the Baath party, in power since 1963, as the “leader of the state and society”.

Month after border talks, Chinese paper says Aksai Chin is a closed chapter

• A month after India and China held the fifteenth round of border talks, a commentary in a Chinese newspaper has questioned India's claims on Kashmir and asserted that the only dispute was over the status of Arunachal Pradesh.
• In New Delhi last month, National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon and Chinese State Councillor Dai Bingguo, the two Special Representatives, discussed a framework for the settlement of disputes in all three sectors — western, middle and eastern. This was in keeping with the 2005 agreement on Political Parameters and Guiding Principles, which marked the ending of the first of three stages of negotiations.
• According to Article III of the agreement, the boundary settlement would be “final, covering all sectors of the India-China boundary.”
• There were two different disputes in the western sector — Aksai Chin and the territory from a 1963 Chinese-Pakistani agreement
• Under the 1963 Sino-Pakistan treaty, which, he said, “contrary to the conventional wisdom in India” favoured Pakistan, China kept around 5,300 sq km of land that Pakistan claimed, but transferred to Pakistan 1,942 sq km of land in the Oprang Valley and dropped claims to an additional 1,554 sq km of land.
• So, China acknowledges a dispute with India in the Western sector of Aksai Chin, but does not acknowledge a dispute with India over its border with Pakistan adjacent to Kashmir.

Iran unveils nuclear advances

• President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled on state television what was said to be Iran's first domestically produced, 20-per-cent enriched nuclear fuel for Tehran's research reactor.
• Iran portrayed the advances as evidence it was only interested in peaceful nuclear goals, under the slogan “nuclear energy for all, nuclear weapons for none”.
• But the steps challenged the basis of four sets of U.N. sanctions and a raft of unilateral U.S. and EU sanctions designed to halt a programme much of the West fears masks a drive for atomic weapons.
• Iran welcomes the readiness of the P5+1 group to return to negotiations in order to take fundamental steps toward further cooperation
• The P5+1 consists of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — and Germany.
• Russia and China have stood by Iran, criticising the Western sanctions
• But there were indications that the support was weakening, at least from Russia.

India and Pakistan to go in for a liberal new visa regime

• In what could prove to be a historic step in removing the atmosphere of animosity between India and Pakistan and promoting peace and people-to-people exchange, both countries have agreed to completely revise the 1974 Bilateral Visa Agreement and put in place a liberal visa regime shortly for all categories of people, especially businessmen, as part of the Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) aimed to promote peace in the region.
• Both countries had exchanged drafts on the new visa regime which were now pending necessary approvals from the respective governments. These drafts have been prepared after the report of the Joint Working Group set up in March 2011

India, Riyadh to set up defence cooperation panel

• It will also explore ways of cooperation in fighting piracy in the Indian Ocean region.
• India and Saudi Arabia have decided to set up a joint panel on defence ties.

International and Bilateral Issues

New U.K. restrictions on work after study

• From April, foreign students from non-European Union countries will be required to have a firm job offer of a minimum £20,000 a year from a government-approved employer if they wish to stay on in Britain after completing their studies, the government announced
• Under the current rules, students can work in Britain for two years after finishing their course but the government claims that the system is being abused with people using student visas to enter the country and then dropping out of their studies to look for employment.
• “A more selective system” would come into effect so that “only the most talented international graduates can apply to stay in the U.K. for work purposes”.
• To boost the economy, student entrepreneurs with at least “£50,000 to invest in their business” will also be allowed to stay on and work after their studies.
• Businesses and universities have warned that too many restrictions would drive away international talent and ultimately hurt the economy. Non-EU students contribute nearly £8 billion to British economy every year, an estimated £6 billion in fee alone.

China ready to play the saviour for debt-hit Europe

• Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told visiting European Union leaders on Tuesday that China was ready to play a bigger role in supporting debt-hit Europe, but stopped short of revealing either the scale of likely investment or how Beijing would back the proposed bailout funds.
• European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso sought Chinese help in meetings on Tuesday, while Europe considers the creation of a €500 billion European Stability Mechanism bailout fund.
• Europe is China's biggest trading partner and a key destination for China's export sector, which sustains millions of jobs. A study released this week showed that China had doubled its investment in European firms over the past year, even as investment in the United States fell.
• China, however, faced a tightrope walk in calibrating its response to the euro-zone crisis. “If China does too less it is blamed, and if China does too much it is blamed, so finding the middle way will be a difficult thing to do,”
• Any Chinese economic assistance “would be a purely economic decision”
• He played down fears of China “buying up Europe” as overblown, pointing out that the size of the European economy was bigger than that of the U.S. China was unlikely to directly press the EU on either the arms embargo or granting market economy status, he said, which was likely to anyway be granted in 2016.

Talks today on border trading point in Rajasthan

• India indicated that it was ready to put in place a liberal multiple visa regime in place if Pakistan reciprocated on the issue.
• India and Pakistan are holding talks not only to opening up another border trading point at the Wagah Border but also at Mona Bao in Rajasthan.
• Undeterred by the Pakistan's decision to defer the issue of pruning the negative list for trade with India, Mr. Sharma said he would be discussing the issue of grant of the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India as well the issue of pruning the negative list to give a fillip to trade.

• Meanwhile, the Cabinet has given its approval to the drafts of the three memoranda of understanding (MoU) to be signed with India at the bilateral meeting in Islamabad
• The three MoUs are Cooperation and Mutual Assistance in Customs Matters Agreement, Bilateral Cooperation Agreement on Mutual Recognition between Pakistan Standard and Quality Control Authority and Bureau of Indian Standards, and Agreement on Redressal of Trade Grievances between Pakistan and India.

Fresh bid to end impasse over Pancheshwar dam

• In a major step forward to break the deadlock over construction of the multipurpose 6000-MW Pancheshwar dam on the Sarada river (Mahakali in Nepal) on the border, New Delhi and Kathmandu will discuss the logistics of setting up a Pancheshwar Development Authority at the first meeting of the Joint Ministerial Commission on Water Resources
• The project is central to the bilateral treaty on Integrated Development of the Mahakali signed in 1996.
• The Pancheshwar project, envisaged on the Uttarakhand-Nepal border, will bring irrigation and flood control benefits to Uttarakhand and Bihar and power to the northern grid.
• The proposal is for India and Nepal to share the cost and benefits equally. However, Kathmandu wants New Delhi to take on a larger financial share.
• Both will also discuss the outstanding issue of Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the Saptakosi High Dam in Nepal meant to bring about a permanent solution to floods in the Kosi and to stabilise the benefits from the Kosi barrage.
• For India, maintenance and strengthening of the embankment of the flood-prone Gandak and Kosi rivers are also important and the issue would be discussed at the meeting.

International and Bilateral Issues

India, Pakistan aim to double trade in 3 years

• Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma on Monday undertook a historic visit to Pakistan through the Wagah border with the commitment to double bilateral trade in the next three years and remove trade barriers to share economic prosperity with its neighbour and facilitate people to people exchange.
• India and Pakistan are working hard on opening the second gate and an integrated customers' post (ICP) at the Wagah-Attari border and hope to finish the task by April 30.

  • Mr. Sharma said India supported Pakistan's case for a European Union-proposed duty waiver on 75 Pakistani products. The waiver was proposed to help Pakistan cope with the impact of floods that devastated the country in 2010.
  • The Pakistan Trade Minister said it was the desire of Pakistan and its people that not only trade but people to people exchange should also increase in the coming times.
  • Union Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma and Mr. Fahim also took part in the closing ceremony of the first ever ‘India Show' in Lahore.
  • Mr. Sharma said he would like to finalise the details of a multiple entry visa regime at the earliest.

• Pakistan said that it would not be possible to announce the pruned ‘negative list' by February-end deadline as some more work needed to be done on the issue.

  • It is estimated officially that a pruned negative list of trade items between India and Pakistan can increase their bilateral trade to around $10 billion in the next five years.
• India can now export only 1,946 items to Pakistan from the 8,000 tradable goods between the two countries. A negative list includes items which cannot be traded legally. Once the negative list came into effect, it would also reduce the illegal border trade between the two countries.

Amsterdam airport evacuated

• Dutch military police said on Monday an unidentified man who locked himself in a toilet after making a bomb threat at Europe's fifth-largest airport had no explosives when he was arrested.
• Gendarmes arrested the man, described by a witness as “confused” after he locked himself in restrooms

Ready to work with Maldives government, says China

• A day after new Maldivian President Waheed Hassan named a new Cabinet, China said it was ready to work closely with the government in Male to bring stability to the divided island nation gripped by political unrest.
• “Based on the five principles of peaceful coexistence, China would like to work closely with the Maldives government,” he added, referring to its policy of “non-interference” in internal affairs in an indication that China would not interfere on Mr. Nasheed's behalf.
• Economic ties between China and the Maldives have grown rapidly in recent years, driven largely by tourism. China, in 2010, became the biggest foreign source of tourism, surging ahead of Europe.
• The number of tourists from China grew by more than 56 per cent over the first half of 2011, accounting for more than one-sixth of all foreign tourists.

U.S. delivers strongest message yet to Sri Lanka

• The United States has despatched two senior officials to convey to Sri Lanka that it has to deliver on its promise of conducting an inquiry into war crimes, or face international sanction.

  • While stressing on the need for an internal mechanism, Mr. Blake made it clear that if the internal mechanism failed, there would be pressure to establish “some sort of international mechanism” to probe human rights abuses.
• Reports such as the U.N. panel of experts report describes in some detail some of their concerns human rights violations and the war crimes allegations that have occurred particularly in the end stages of the conflict from January to May 2009

  • Sri Lanka has not yet done enough to implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committee, and comprehensively address the question of accountability
• Many Sri Lankans have criticised the U.S. and have often tried to point to its own record on human rights in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, and in other places across the world.

  • Ever since the publication of the report of the United Nations Secretary-General's Panel of Experts on Accountability issues in Sri Lanka in April 2011, friends of Sri Lanka have mounted a campaign to get the country and its government off the hook of international scrutiny.
• Sri Lanka, too, set up the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Committee, along the lines of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, to go into the reasons for the conflict and suggest the way forward.

International and Bilateral Issues

Greece faces uncertain future

• With six Cabinet members resigning in protest against an unpopular new austerity package, continued clashes between police and demonstrators in the streets of Athens and other major Greek cities, increasing pressure from Germany, France and other EU biggies, Greece finds itself faced with an uncertain future that could still lead to default and the consequent unravelling of the Euro zone.
• Greece must meet debt repayments of 14.5 billion Euros by March 20 to keep it head above water.
• The new measures will result in salary, pension and job cuts and are likely to hit the weakest and worst off members of Greek society.
• But politicians tried to argue their way out of a terrifying bind saying Greeks should consider what it would mean for the country to lose its banking system, to be cut off from imports of raw materials, pharmaceuticals, fuel, basic foodstuffs and technology.

International and Bilateral Issues

India, Bangladesh to resume talks on Teesta Treaty

• India and Bangladesh will take the first step towards revisiting the proposed Teesta river treaty when officials exchange river flow data at a technical meeting of the inter-governmental Joint Rivers Commission

  • India had put the treaty on hold after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, unhappy over the treaty's provisions, pulled out of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh delegation to Dhaka last year.
• In case of Teesta, both sides are also thinking of involving Sikkim, the uppermost riparian State.
• An agreement is expected to pave the way for the signing of a similar agreement on the Feni river and five minor ones — Dudh Kumar, Manu, Khowai, Gomti and Muhuri.
• West Bengal or any of the other State through which over 50 rivers flow into Bangladesh will be kept in the loop while signing water sharing agreements.
• The States were briefed and their advice taken during negotiations on a protocol on land boundary that was signed during Dr. Singh's September 2011 visit to Dhaka.
• The Centre had also obtained the written consent of States and kept its negotiating brief within the parameters of their advice, especially from the West Bengal government, on taking “pragmatic steps”, which meant retaining the status quo, on enclaves and exclaves.

Don't shut down pharmacy of developing world, Oxfam requests European Union

• On the eve of a high-level summit between the leaders of India and the European Union (EU) in Delhi, Oxfam has called upon the EU to not pressurise India into agreeing to new trade rules that could deny hundreds of millions of people access to affordable medicines.
• The EU, backed by multinational pharmaceutical companies, is trying to impose new intellectual property and investment (IP) rules in India, which would result in drastically higher medicine prices for the poorest people across the globe, warned Oxfam.
• At a time of austerity and declining aid budgets, especially for health, efforts to increase medicine prices for the world's poor would be a double blow and have a devastating impact on the achievement of health-related millennium development goals.
• India plays a critical role in the global medicines market, producing over two-thirds of all generic medicines; affordable versions of drugs licensed by multinational companies, which are largely sold to poor and middle income countries.
• Currently, over 80 per cent of all HIV and AIDS medicines are manufactured by generic companies in India, but if new trade rules are agreed upon, the price of life-saving treatment will increase drastically
• The Indian Government, until now, has repeatedly rejected the EU demands to introduce any of the additional IP rules under the free trade agreement.

Last known WWI veteran dies at 110

• Florence Green Green, who has died at age 110, was the last known surviving veteran of World War I.
• She was serving with the Women's Royal Air Force (U.K.) as a waitress at an air base in eastern England when the guns fell silent on November 11, 1918.

International and Bilateral Issues

Pakistan, Afghan, ISAF coordination resumes

• The Army resumed border coordination with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) stationed in Afghanistan and the Afghan National Army after a two-month freeze in relations following the NATO air strike on Pakistani border outposts.
• Border Coordination Centre at Torkham
• Border coordination meetings — aimed at ensuring that terrorists do not cross over to either side of the porus Durand Line whenever operations are being conducted against them in the two countries

U.K.-Argentina war of words over Falkland Islands

• The simmering tension between Britain and Argentina over Falkland Islands threatened to escalate into an international crisis on Tuesday after Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (first elected female president) announced that she intended to make a formal complaint to the United Nations about British “militarisation” of the region while Britain curtly rejected any negotiations over its territorial claims.
• Both countries claim sovereignty over the islands and went to war in 1982.
• The Argentine move came as Britain planned to deploy one of its most modern Navy ships, HMS Dauntless, to the South Atlantic, off the Falklands, and Prince William arrived on the islands to take up his assignment as a search-and-rescue helicopter pilot in a move that Argentina saw as a provocation on the eve of the 30th anniversary of British victory in the Falklands war
• Argentina, which calls the islands Las Malvinas, has the backing of its regional allies including Brazil, Chile and Uruguay.
• In a show of solidarity, the South American trading bloc, Mercosur, has closed its ports to ships flying the Falkland Islands flag.

• Controversy exists over the Falkland's original discovery and subsequent colonisation by Europeans. At various times there have been French, British, Spanish, and Argentine settlements. Britain re-established its rule in 1833, yet the islands remain claimed by Argentina.
• In 1982, following Argentina's invasion of the islands, the two-month-long undeclared Falklands War between both countries resulted in the withdrawal of Argentine forces.
• Despite its defeat, Argentina still pursues its claim; however, UK policy supports the islanders' self-determination to remain British citizens.
• Under the British Nationality Act of 1983, Falkland Islanders are British citizens.
• Although the United Nations Committee on Decolonization includes the Falkland Islands on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories,it has been asserted that the Falkland Islands is one of 16 territories which have too small a population "to survive as viable, fully independent state."
• The United Kingdom bases its claim on continuous administration of the islands since 1833 (apart from the Argentine military occupation in 1982)
• Argentina claims that it acquired the islands from Spain when Argentina became independent in 1811 and that the United Kingdom exceeded their authority by expelling the Argentine settlers in 1833.
• The islanders (majority of British descent) reject the Argentine sovereignty claim.

India played neutral as Nasheed's men sought military intervention

• Fearing for the personal liberty of the deposed Maldives President, Mohd Nasheed, close aides said some of his Ministers had sought Indian military assistance when the “coup” was under way on Tuesday but none came.
• But highly placed sources here claimed that India played a neutral role in the squabble.
• “This is certainly not 1988,” the sources said, in reference to “Operation Cactus” launched by the Indian army and navy after businessmen Lutfee hired Tamil mercenaries from Sri Lanka to depose the then President, Abdul Gayoom.
• Giving an eyewitness account of how Mr. Nasheed was forced to quit, the aides said a few minutes to noon on Tuesday, they saw a fleet of unmarked military cars arrive at the Presidential House. Mr. Nasheed got out surrounded by military men, some of them armed. He had a quick meeting with Ministers and was then “forced to resign with a gun pointed to his head.” He was escorted out by the military and in an hour, Vice-President Waheed, who had been making “strange statements” since midnight, became President.

Playing down irritants, India and China call for new, ‘flexible' approach to ties

• Indian and Chinese leaders on Wednesday laid out a new roadmap for bilateral ties, calling for a “flexible” and “imaginative” approach in 2012 to minimise the effect of persisting political irritants, such as the border dispute and Tibet.
• External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, who on Wednesday evening inaugurated India's new $10-million embassy, which he described as turning “a new page” in ties, underscored India's willingness to calm sources of tension.
• He particularly stressed in unusually strong terms New Delhi's support to Beijing on the Tibetan issue
• This week, Beijing blamed overseas Tibetan groups, some based in Dharamsala, and exiled religious leader the Dalai Lama for fanning flames of unrest.
• While India reiterated that the Dalai Lama was “an honoured guest” of India and his activities were not political, Mr. Krishna reaffirmed India's support to the ‘One China' policy
• It is the government of India's position that the Tibet Autonomous Region is part of the People's Republic of China
• Mr. Zhou described the opening of the new embassy building as “an auspicious event in the year of the dragon.” China celebrated the start of the new dragon year on January 23.
• Mr. Krishna said he raised the case of two Indian traders in the town of Yiwu, who were illegally detained by Chinese businessmen, accused of owing 10 million RMB
• Mr. Krishna denied media reports that New Delhi had objected to the visit by the Vice-Governor of Zhejiang province, where Yiwu is located, to Gujarat.
• However, sources said New Delhi believed the timing of the visit was unsuitable considering their displeasure with the way provincial authorities handled the Yiwu case. “If you maltreat our businessmen, you are sending a bad signal,”
• The two countries, which have recently held similar positions on global issues, discussed their recently differing positions on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) vote on Syria.
• China stressed it held similar views on India, focusing on political stability and not regime change. Officials appeared concerned about China's isolation with Russia on the issue, hinting at unease over the vote and stressing the commonality of Chinese positions with India on most issues.