The New Nation - Internet Edition

Chinese president hopeful on Tibet talks

AP, Shenzhen

President Hu Jintao said he has hopes for a positive outcome between representatives of the Dalai Lama and Chinese officials at talks that began Sunday - the first since violent anti-government protests erupted in Tibet in March.

"I hope that the contacts with the Dalai Lama's side from today will yield a positive outcome," Hu told Japanese reporters in Beijing, the Kyodo News agency reported.

Samdhong Rinpoche, prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharmsala, India, said the envoys have arrived in the southern city of Shenzhen and talks began Sunday morning. He said he didn't know any other details.

The talks were scheduled to last for a day or two, he said.

"We are positive that something good will come out of it," Samdhong Rinpoche told The Associated Press.

A report by China's official Xinhua News Agency confirmed the Dalai Lama's envoys, Lodi Gyari and Kelsang Gyaltsen, would meet with two vice ministers of the United Front Work Department, Zhu Weiqun and Sita, who are designated to deal with influential people in groups outside China's Communist Party. The meeting location was not announced but a large group of reporters from Japan and Hong Kong were staking out a gated development of villas where high-ranking leaders are known to stay in a leafy suburb of Shenzhen.

The Dalai Lama's representatives planned to push for an easing of tensions in Tibetan areas of China and address Beijing's accusations that the spiritual leader has been masterminding the recent unrest, Samdhong Rinpoche told a public rally in Dharmsala.

"Our hopes are high, but this is just a small step in a long process," he said. The Tibetan government-in-exile has called the meetings "informal talks with representatives of the Chinese leadership."

International critics have accused China of heavy-handed tactics in quelling protests in Tibet and Tibetan-community areas of western China. Some experts believe Beijing agreed to meet with the Dalai Lama's envoys to ease that criticism ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August.

China says 22 people died in violence in Tibet's capital of Lhasa in March, while overseas Tibet supporters say many times that number died in protests and the subsequent security crackdown. Beijing claims the Dalai Lama and his supporters organized the riots with the aim of breaking the far western Himalayan region of Tibet away from Chinese rule. The Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet amid a failed uprising in 1959, says he is seeking meaningful autonomy for Tibet rather than independence from Chinese rule. He has decried "cultural genocide" in his homeland, which has a unique Buddhist tradition distinct from the rest of China.

The Tibetan prime minister-in-exile said Sunday that talks between representatives of the Dalai Lama and Chinese officials had began in Shenzhen, China, but gave no other details.

"They (the talks) have started this morning. The envoys will come back to India on Tuesday or Wednesday," Samdhong Rinpoche told AFP in the Indian hill station of Dharmshala where the government-in-exile is located.

He added that details of the talks would only be known after the envoys had returned.

Tibetan leaders have played down expectations for the Shenzhen talks, and said their priority was to end the current crisis in Tibet.

"Our immediate concern is for the repression to end and all restrictions on Tibetans should be lifted," the government-in-exile's spokesman, Thubten Samphel, said earlier Sunday.

Afghanistan urges Pakistan to stop 'terrorists’

AFP, Kabul

Pakistan should stop "terrorists" from using its soil to attack Afghanistan if it makes deals with Taliban militants along the troubled border, the Afghan defence ministry said.

Islamabad has been trying to reach a peace deal with a Taliban commander on its side of the frontier. The militant halted talks last week because the government refused to withdraw its troops from his area.

The Afghan defence ministry said it was concerned any such deal would not result in a cessation of violence in Afghanistan by militants said to be based in Pakistan and to cross the border to attack.

The ministry cited media reports that a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban vowed to continue the "real jihad (holy war)" in Afghanistan even if a peace deal was reached with Islamabad.

"Afghanistan supports any action resulting in peace and stability in the region but only if such actions do not cause further terrorist activities in Afghanistan," it said.

The ministry described a now-defunct 2006 deal between Pakistan and pro-Taliban militants in its Waziristan area as a "bitter experience."

It had allowed militants "sufficient time to regroup, re-equip and moblise themselves and take the lives of hundreds of children, women and men," it said, referring to a wave of extremist violence in both countries.

"Afghanistan's biggest hope from the brotherly and friendly country of Pakistan is that its land be not used by terrorists against Afghanistan," it added.

The Taliban were removed from government in Afghanistan in a US-led invasion in late 2001 for harbouring Al-Qaeda, which it allowed to operate training camps.

Many rebels fled across the border to Pakistan from where they are said to be plotting an Al-Qaeda-backed insurgency that has left thousands of people dead in Afghanistan, including civilians and international troops supporting Kabul.

The US State Department said last week that Al-Qaeda is rebuilding itself in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas and North West Frontier Province, both on the border with Afghanistan.

Kabul favours peace talks with rebels to halt the unrest, but only with those who agree to accept the new government and renounce violence.

Fresh battles kill 43 combatants in Sri Lanka

AFP, Colombo

Heavy weekend fighting between government troops and Tamil separatists in Sri Lanka's war-ravaged northern region left 35 rebels and eight soldiers dead, the military said Sunday.

The latest battles erupted Saturday along the front lines in the Mannar and Welioya regions, the military said.

In the worst fighting, soldiers killed 13 Tamil rebels in Janakapura in Welioya, said a defense ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Four soldiers were killed and six soldiers and 26 rebels were wounded, he said.

Sporadic fighting in the northern Mannar district killed 18 rebels and one soldier, the official said, adding that six soldiers and six rebels were wounded in that fighting.

Separate fighting in Welioya left four rebels and three soldiers dead, he said.

150 PKK rebels killed, claims Turkey

Reuters, Ankara

The Turkish army said on Saturday that it killed more than 150 Kurdish PKK fighters in air strikes in northern Iraq this week, but the rebel group denied this and security forces in the region also expressed skepticism.

The Turkish General Staff, in a statement on its website, said its warplanes had destroyed all the PKK posts they had targeted in bombing operations in Iraq's Qandil area on Thursday and Friday.

"It was established that more than 150 terrorists were left ineffective and the operation caused a big panic among the terror organization's members," the statement said.

7 South Koreans killed by tidal wave

AP, Seoul

A sudden high wave crashed into a bulwark near a western coastal beach, leaving at least seven people dead and 12 others injured Sunday, the South Korean Coast Guard said.

The large wave - believed to be as high as 16 feet - abruptly jumped the bulwark near a western coastal beach about 120 miles south of Seoul where dozens of people were fishing and enjoy sightseeing, said Lee Won-il, a local Coast Guard officer.

Lee earlier said at least eight people were killed but later revised the death toll to seven, saying the change stemmed from confusion over a name. Lee, who earlier said that 15 people were believed to be missing, later said that number could turn out to be lower.

Rice pushes for progress on Israel-Palestinian peace

AP, Jerusalem

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday she will ask Israel to remove more physical barriers erected in the West Bank as a bulwark against Palestinian militants. The Bush administration also would like to see speedier progress toward a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, a goal of President Bush in his final year in office, Rice said en route to Israel and the West Bank for weekend meetings.

Bush's top diplomat said it's too early for pessimism, despite a lack of obvious accomplishment in talks Bush began with lofty ideals five months ago. Rice suggested she will lean on Israel to yank West Bank roadblocks that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says strangle the Palestinian economy.

Musharraf may accept judges restoration

AP, Islamabad

President Pervez Musharraf may accept the reinstatement of judges he dismissed if the new government amends the constitution instead of simply passing a parliamentary resolution, a spokesman for his political party said Saturday.

Musharraf purged the judiciary of some 60 judges - including Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry - when he imposed a state of emergency in November to avoid any legal challenges to his re-election as president.

Olmert will meet Palestinian president today

AP, Jerusalem

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he will meet Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Monday. Olmert made the announcement Sunday at the regular weekly meeting of his Cabinet. Palestinian officials had previously said the meeting would take place Monday in Jerusalem.

Abbas visited Washington last week and has complained that months of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have yielded no progress. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in the region for talks with Palestinian and Israeli officials.