NATO pursues Qatar base: Kabul airport security isn’t the only item on NATO’s Afghanistan agenda but alliance members have approached Qatar about prov
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Foreign affairs update
- NATO pursues Qatar base: Kabul airport security isn’t the only item on NATO’s Afghanistan agenda but alliance members have approached Qatar about providing NATO with a base to train Afghan forces, with the United Kingdom, the United States, and Turkey participating. NATO has already indicated its desire to continue its training and advising mission in Afghanistan through remote channels and in third countries. Qatar is home to the Taliban’s political office and the venue for recent talks among the insurgents, the U.S. government, and, more recently, the Afghan government. The Taliban’s 2020 agreement with the United States says nothing about training Afghan forces abroad, so the group has no grounds to reject such an arrangement.
- Pakistan's national budget: The Pakistani Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin presented encouraging new economic data in his Budget. Despite the pandemic, the country’s GDP grew nearly 4 percent in the first nine months of the 2020-2021 fiscal year, which ends this month—notably higher than earlier targets of 2.1 percent. Tarin attributed this success to strong performances from Pakistan’s industrial and services sectors. The GDP growth target for next year is 4.8 percent. The Budget highlights include increased development spending, 10 percent raises for government employees, and emergency agriculture spending. But such generous spending isn’t ensured, given that Pakistan’s participation in an International Monetary Fund bailout program may necessitate more austerity. The FM warned about the country’s long-standing structural constraints, including its inability to generate tax revenue.
- India-China border clash anniversary: June 15 marked one year since 20 Indian and five Chinese soldiers were killed in a clash in the disputed border region of Ladakh, the deadliest conflict between the countries in more than 40 years. The incident exposed India’s vulnerabilities in the region, likely prompting New Delhi to pursue a border truce with Pakistan in February to dedicate attention to its border with China. News media reported that Chinese soldiers remain mobilized along the disputed border even months after the Chinese military disengaged from areas near the clash.
- US Maldives talks: The exchange between Colin Kahl and Abdulla Shahid, which addressed U.S. pandemic assistance and common interests in the Indo-Pacific region, may hint at an emerging Biden administration policy in South Asia. Most of Biden administration's high-level engagements in the region so far have been with Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan, with the exception of a trip to Bangladesh by climate czar John Kerry. But South Asia is becoming a major battleground for India-China rivalry, with many small South Asian states—including the Maldives—caught up in the strategic competition. Washington has a strong interest in engaging more with them.
- Iran's presidential election: A presidential election was held in Iran on 18th June, but it was not a contest. Four candidates, already vetted for their ideological purity by the country’s Guardian Council, vied for the presidency, with one—Ebrahim Raisi, the head of the judiciary—widely tipped to win. Raisi, 60, comes to the job with an unimpeachable pedigree within Iran’s hierarchy. He has served as both attorney general and chief justice, and earned a spot on U.S. and EU sanctions lists for his role in the sentencing of over a thousand dissidents to death in 1988. Iran’s unique political system usually does not leave much room for dissent, but this election appears to go even further to eliminate the risk of ideological diversity. Experts said that this year’s election is the hard-liners’ most transparent attempt in Iran’s modern history to not just disqualify their rivals but remove their line of thinking entirely from Iran’s political landscape.
- Rejuvenation of JCPOA delayed: The nuclear deal between Obama administration and President Rouhani came apart as Trump walked away from it. Now, President Biden is trying to recover lost ground. But negotiations in Vienna on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal and lifting U.S. sanctions have not yet concluded. That will create an awkward start to the likely new Raisi presidency. A deal before election day would have allowed Raisi to blame any ill outcomes on his soon-to-be predecessor Hassan Rouhani. Iran’s new president won’t take office until August, leaving time for political cover should a deal fail to live up to Tehran’s expectations.
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