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Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa has fronted Pakistan’s train to create a province in disputed Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) in the occupied Northern Areas, holding a quiet assembly with the nation’s politicians on the subject earlier than a minister went public with Islamabad’s plans final week. But the military, folks accustomed to the matter stated, isn’t driving the creation of the fifth province alone.
A 39-year-old has additionally been arduous at work. Moeed W Yusuf.
Yusuf, Special Assistant to Prime Minister Imran Khan on National Security Division and Strategic Planning, has been a principal player in Islamabad’s determination to revoke the notional autonomy granted to Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and incorporate the disputed area as certainly one of Pakistan’s 5 provinces, Pakistan watchers in New Delhi stated, describing Pakistan’s younger National Security Adviser as one of many undertaking’s key driving forces.
Gilgit-Baltistan’s assimilation into the Islamic Republic works properly with China that has poured billions of {dollars} – even when a lot of it’s a mortgage – into the China Pakistan Economic Corridor to construct another provide path to the choked, and susceptible Malacca Strait, the primary transport channel between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. The military has scaled up its presence in the GB area over time to safe the CPEC that has confronted some opposition from locals over considerations that it destroys the atmosphere, tradition and social cloth with out a lot profit to the folks.
The effort to alter Gilgit-Baltistan’s disputed standing additionally suits in properly with Moeed Yusuf’s long-standing undertaking to show the Line of Control with India into an International Border. Back in 2009 when he was nonetheless an instructional and constructing his ties to the institution in Pakistan and the United States, Moeed Yusuf had advocated changing the LoC into the IB, with each side sustaining sovereign management over the respective elements of Jammu and Kashmir.
A Pakistan watcher stated Moeed Yusuf explored the opportunity of formalising the LoC because the border between the 2 nations practically a decade later when he visited New Delhi in 2018. “By then, he had entrenched himself in the establishment in Washington via the US Institute of Peace and worked closely with the Pakistan Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence.,” he stated.
Yusuf had cultivated a picture of being an advocate of Indo-Pak peace and determination of the Kashmir problem at USIP. He did run into a little bit of a controversy at USIP months earlier than Imran Khan picked him as his particular adviser in December 2019 when objections had been raised concerning the public-funded establishment turning into a venue of selection for internet hosting Pakistani officers at occasions reserved for choose invitees. One South Asia professional Dr Christine Fair additionally alleged that Yusuf had been sharing delicate data with Pakistani businesses utilizing his place and entry throughout the USIP.
Moeed Yusuf is claimed to have continued to talk about his concepts on Indo-Pak relations after he joined Imran Khan’s workforce as properly and plugged the agenda with General Bajwa and different high navy officers.
In his new function in Imran Khan’s workforce, his understanding and familiarity with the American system helped to place him as the primary strategic thinker for the Pakistani management, notably on coping with the US Administration, Congress, paperwork and the think-tanks.
Not a lot is understood about his views on Pakistan’s help of terrorism to realize political and diplomatic ends, notably in Kashmir. Indian counter-terror officers stated that they had not heard of any occasion the place Moeed Yusuf had spoken of ending the institution’s help to terrorists working in India.
“What we do know is that he did come up with the idea that Pakistan should not seek mediation on Kashmir over concerns that Islamabad could be placed in an awkward position if the US came up with a unilateral proposal, akin to Donald Trump’s Middle East Plan,” a senior Indian official stated. This concept, nonetheless, didn’t discover any help throughout the navy and the overseas workplace.
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