Author: Himalaya Post

SEOUL – The foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and 17 other countries urged North Korea to fulfill its commitment to complete denuclearization during their Singapore talks last week, their chair statement showed Monday. Singapore, this year’s chair of the annual ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), published its statement summarizing the foreign ministers’ meeting, which took place Saturday. The annual ARF is the sole regional forum in which the North’s top diplomat participates. “The ministers urged all concerned parties to continue working towards the realization of lasting peace and stability on a denuclearized Korean Peninsula,” the statement reads. “They also urged the DPRK to fulfill its stated commitment to complete denuclearization and its pledge to refrain from further nuclear and missile tests,” it added, referring to North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The statement also noted that the ministers welcomed the April and May inter-Korean summits at the border truce village of Panmunjom and the historic June Singapore summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. At the summits, Kim committed himself to the complete denuclearization of the peninsula, which was seen by optimists as a positive sign but by skeptics as yet another vague pledge with no specifics as for how and when to achieve that goal. The statement, in addition, said that during the ARF talks,...

TEHRAN  – Saudi Arabia has granted a visa to an Iranian diplomat to work in a consular office in Jeddah, state media reported Sunday, in a rare sign of a thaw between the rival powers. Foreign ministry official Mohammad Alibak has been permitted to serve as head of Iran’s Interests Section in the consulate, state news agency IRNA reported. There was no immediate confirmation from Riyadh.Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia and Iran, the predominant Shiite power, have for decades stood on opposing sides of conflicts in the Middle East including the Syrian civil war. The two countries severed diplomatic relations in early 2016 after Riyadh’s embassy in Tehran was attacked by militants in response to the execution of a top Shiite cleric in Saudi...

TOKYO – A bell tolled Monday in Hiroshima as Japan marked 73 years since the world’s first atomic bombing, with the city’s mayor warning that rising nationalism worldwide threatened peace. The skies over Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park were clear, just as they were on August 6, 1945, when an American B-29 bomber dropped its deadly payload on the port city dotted with military installations, ultimately killing 140,000 people. Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui, standing at the park near ground zero for the annual ceremony, appealed for a world without nuclear weapons and sounded the alarm over increasing nationalism. Without naming specific nations, he warned that “certain countries are explicitly expressing self-centred nationalism and modernising their nuclear arsenals.”They were “rekindling tensions that had eased with the end of the Cold War”, he added. He urged the abolition of nuclear weapons, in a year when President Donald Trump pledged to increase the US nuclear arsenal. “If the human family forgets history or stops confronting it, we could again commit a terrible error. That is precisely why we must continue talking about Hiroshima,” Matsui said. “Efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons must continue.”His call however highlighted Japan’s contradictory relationship with nuclear weapons.Japanese officials routinely argue that they oppose atomic weapons but the nation’s defence is dependent on the US nuclear umbrella. – New relations – This year’s ceremony comes amid a diplomatic push for...

Sukma (Chhattisgarh), India –  In a massive victory to the security forces in Chhattisgarh, at least 14 Maoists were killed in an encounter on Monday near Sukma’s Konta and Golapalli police station limits. The security forces also recovered 16 weapons from the spot. According to Sukma’s Superintendent of Police, Abhishek Meena, the encounter broke out in the morning when the police patrol party was carrying out a search operation in the area. The security forces are continuing with their search to check the presence of more Naxals around the encounter site. Earlier this month, the Chhattisgarh Police said that Maoists had released a pamphlet claiming that they lost 247 of their cadres in encounters with security forces over the last two years. However, Special Director General (Anti-Naxal Operations) DM Awasthi said that security forces recovered bodies of 208 Naxals in more than 500 encounters between August 2016 and July 2018....

OTTAWA- Canada said Monday it is “seriously concerned” about reports that its ambassador to Riyadh is being expelled by Saudi Arabia. The kingdom announced earlier it had declared the Canadian ambassador persona non grata and given him 24 hours to leave the country following Ottawa’s vigorous demands for the release of jailed activists. “We are seriously concerned by these media reports and are seeking greater clarity on the recent statement from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” said Marie-Pier Baril, a Canadian foreign ministry...