World

Pakistan’s Taliban accused the military Tuesday of breaking a fragile ceasefire, after the army said five soldiers and at least four militants died in a gun battle in the country’s northwest.

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) declared an indefinite ceasefire in June to facilitate peace talks being brokered by neighbouring Afghanistan, but there have been regular clashes since then despite both sides saying the truce was still on.

In the latest clash on Monday, the Pakistan military said it raided a militant hideout in Boyya, North Waziristan, following an intelligence tip-off.

“Intense fire exchange took place between own troops and terrorists,” the military’s public relations wing said in a statement.

It said four militants were killed, and five soldiers, including an officer, “embraced martyrdom”.

On Tuesday a TTP commander confirmed the clash and accused the government of bad faith, saying troops had attacked them in six districts recently, including Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

“The government was not honouring its commitment regarding the ceasefire,” the commander told AFP.

A government official who has been party to negotiations with the group accused them of “targeted killings” and “increasing their movements” in parts of the country.

Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan last year Islamabad has regularly complained of attacks by the TTP, especially along their porous frontier.

The Pakistan and Afghanistan Taliban are separate groups, but share a common ideology.

Afghanistan insists it will not allow its soil to be used by foreign militants, but hundreds of Pakistan Taliban fighters are believed to be in the country, as well as much of the group’s leadership.

On Tuesday Pakistan’s military marked Defence Day, honouring those who died in the 1965 war with India.

Liz Truss on Tuesday officially became Britain’s new prime minister, at an audience with head of state Queen Elizabeth II after the resignation of Boris Johnson.

The former foreign secretary, 47, was seen in an official photograph shaking hands with the monarch to accept her offer to form a new government and become the 15th prime minister of her 70-year reign.

The symbolic ceremony took place at the sovereign’s remote Balmoral retreat in the Scottish Highlands, as the queen, 96, was deemed unfit to return to London due to ill health.

“The queen received in audience the right honourable Elizabeth Truss MP today and requested her to form a new administration,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement. 

“Ms Truss accepted Her Majesty’s offer and kissed hands upon her appointment as prime minister. 

The last time the handover of power took place at Balmoral was in 1885, when queen Victoria was on the throne. 

Normally, the outgoing and incoming prime minister meet the queen in quick succession at Buckingham Palace in central London. 

It has only been held once outside London since 1952, when Winston Churchill met the new queen at Heathrow Airport after the death of her father, king George VI.

Truss, who was announced winner of an internal vote of Conservative party members on Monday, after a gruelling contest that began in July.

She is expected to make her first speech as prime minister outside 10 Downing Street at about 4:00 pm (1500 GMT) on Tuesday — weather permitting.

Heavy rain and storms are forecast, mirroring the gloomy economic situation that she and her new senior ministers will now have to tackle.

The appointments are due to be finalised before she hosts her first cabinet meeting and faces questions in parliament on Wednesday.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng is expected to become finance minister, with Attorney General Suella Braverman moved to the tricky brief of home secretary, and James Cleverly to foreign affairs.

If confirmed, it would mean no white men in any of Britain’s four main ministerial posts for the first time ever.

– To-do list –

The incoming prime minister faces a daunting to-do list, with the UK in the grip of its worst economic crisis in decades, with double-digit inflation and sky-rocketing gas and electricity bills.

Truss, who touts herself as a free-market liberal, has promised tax cuts to stimulate growth, despite warnings that greater borrowing could make inflation worse.

British media reported on Tuesday that she would freeze energy bills for hard-pressed households and business which could cost some £100 billion ($116 billion).

The contrast to her beaten leadership rival Rishi Sunak’s more cautious approach has opened another rift in the Conservative party that was already divided by Johnson’s departure.

Recent opinion polls suggest a sizeable chunk of the British public have no faith in her ability to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.

A new poll by YouGov said only 14 percent expect Truss — the fourth Tory prime minister in six years — to do a better job than Johnson.

Johnson, whose tenure was dominated by Brexit and Covid and cut short by a succession of scandals, earlier promised Truss his unswerving support as he made a farewell speech in Downing Street.

“I will be supporting Liz Truss and the new government every step of the way,” he said, before leaving for Balmoral to cheers and applause from supporters.

He urged the Tories to put aside their ideological differences which have seen the party fight like cats and dogs over how best to tackle the energy crisis.

“If Dilyn (his dog) and Larry (the Downing Street cat) can put behind them their occasional difficulties then so can the Conservative party,” he added.

– Comeback? –

But former newspaper polemicist Johnson failed to dampen speculation that he is eyeing a potential return to the political front line.

“Like Cincinnatus, I am returning to my plough,” he said. Latin scholars were quick to point out that the Roman statesman eventually returned to politics.

Johnson, 58, remains popular among grassroots Tories as a charismatic election winner who took the country out of the European Union.

Despite repeated accusations of corruption and cronyism during his tenure, and an unprecedented police fine for breaking his own lockdown rules, Johnson is said to be smarting at having to leave.

Speculation has swirled that he could bide his time for a comeback, particularly if Truss struggles to overcome the country’s many problems.

In her acceptance speech on Monday, Truss ruled out seeking her own mandate from the public at an early general election, vowing victory in 2024.

President Vladimir Putin attended large-scale military exercises on Tuesday involving China and several Russia-friendly countries as Moscow seeks to strengthen partnerships in Asia in the face of Western sanctions. 

Russia has found itself increasingly isolated as tensions between Moscow and Western capitals soared since Russia sent troops into pro-Western Ukraine on February 24. 

Slapped with unprecedented sanctions from Washington and Brussels, Putin has pursued closer ties with countries in Africa, South America and Asia — especially China. 

Putin on Tuesday attended the Vostok-2022 manoeuvres that are being held in training grounds in Russia Far East and in the waters off its eastern coast, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told local news agencies.

Putin was meeting with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and military chief of staff Valery Gerasimov at the Sergeyevsky military range and would later observe the final phase of the military exercises, Peskov was quoted as saying.

The drills, involving several of Russia’s neighbours, as well as Syria, India and key ally China, started on September 1 and are due to end Wednesday. 

According to Moscow, over 50,000 soldiers and more than 5,000 units of military equipment, including 140 aircraft and 60 ships, were to be involved in the drills. 

Similar drills were last held in 2018.

Putin’s visit to Russia’s Far East will continue on Wednesday in the port city of Vladivostok where he is expected to address the Eastern Economic Forum. 

Over 5,000 people will be taking part in the four-day forum that kicked off on Monday with the largest delegation hailing from China, according to the Kremlin. 

At the forum’s plenary session Putin will be joined by China’s top legislator Li Zhanshu — who ranks third in the Chinese government hierarchy — with a bilateral meeting also on the agenda.

Li will become the highest-ranking Communist party politician to travel to the country since Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine.

– ‘No limits’ relationship –

“Russia-China relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation are developing progressively,” the Kremlin said in a statement ahead of the meeting.

It also noted “China’s balanced approach to the Ukraine crisis” and Beijing’s “understanding” of the reasons behind Russia’s offensive. 

Beijing and Moscow have drawn closer in recent years, ramping up cooperation as part of what they call a “no limits” relationship, acting as a counterweight to the global dominance of the United States.

Beijing has refused to condemn Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine and provided diplomatic cover by blasting Western sanctions and arms sales to Kyiv, heightening tensions between China and the West.

Tensions were further strained during the August visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to self-ruled, democratic Taiwan, which China considers its territory.

Moscow was in full solidarity with Beijing during the visit with Putin accusing Washington of “destabilising” the world. 

At the economic forum, Putin was also expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Myanmar junta chief Min Aug Hlaing.

Russia and China have been accused of arming Myanmar’s junta with weapons used to attack civilians since last year’s coup. 

Meanwhile in Moscow, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who had visited Myanmar and Cambodia in August, on Tuesday was hosting Thai counterpart Don Pramudwinai. 

Later in the month, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit scheduled for September 15 and 16 in Uzbekistan could also become an opportunity for Moscow and Beijing to further cement ties. 

An in-person meeting is reportedly planned between Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has not left China since 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

The two leaders last met in Beijing in early February ahead of the  Winter Olympics Games and days before Putin launched an offensive in Ukraine.

There is little chance of Britain resetting relations with France under incoming prime minister Liz Truss, experts say, with the neighbours’ geographical proximity and sometimes diverging interests making for a testy post-Brexit relationship.

Truss played on tense cross-Channel ties during the Conservative party leadership election, declaring, “The jury’s out” when asked whether French President Emmanuel Macron was a “friend or foe”.

It was the latest in a string of barbs at Paris from UK leaders that have at times exasperated the French.

“The United Kingdom is a friendly, strong and allied nation, regardless of its leaders, and sometimes in spite of its leaders,” Macron later responded.

“(Truss’s) pitch to the party faithful is that she’s going to be very tough on Europe and very tough particularly on Macron, because that plays well with the Conservative base,” former British ambassador to Paris Peter Ricketts told AFP.

Led since 2017 by the passionately pro-EU Macron, Britain’s historic rival France has become a preferred scapegoat for post-Brexit tensions.

– Intimate enemies –

“Because of the nearness and because of the huge movement of people and freight… the Brexit irritations and annoyances tend to happen mostly between Britain and France,” Ricketts said.

Around 55 percent of goods trucks — around a million vehicles — leaving Britain in 2020 used the ferry or rail crossings between Dover and Calais, according to UK government figures.

Meanwhile the French government reported 12 million British visitors in 2019 — the last year before the coronavirus crisis — and Britain 3.6 million French.

Since 2020, restrictive coronavirus measures and Brexit rule changes have triggered border jams, often blamed by eurosceptic UK politicians and tabloids on French intransigence.

London and Paris also rowed in 2021 over shortages of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine.

“We can be sure of a continued high level of stress and friction” at the border, Ricketts said, highlighting a new EU advance travel registration system known as ETIAS beginning next year.

In fact, “we could be in a full-fledged trade war with the European Union in eight months” if Truss abandons parts of the Brexit deal relating to checks at the Irish border, said Anand Menon, professor of European politics at King’s College London.

But Menon argued escalation was unlikely given the danger it might worsen the cost-of-living crisis.

Less crucial to the economy have been noisy disputes over issues like fishing licences for French boats around the Channel islands — now mostly resolved — and migrants trying to cross to Britain in dinghies.

London has repeatedly threatened to withdraw tens of millions of euros paid to support French coastal policing.

More than 27,000 people have attempted to cross the Channel so far in 2022 — almost as many as in the whole of 2021.

– ‘Global Britain’ –

British and French interests further afield can be closely aligned — for instance in trade and security.

The two governments “don’t always come to the same solutions … but they do share many of the same instincts”, said Georgina Wright, Europe programme director at French think-tank Institut Montaigne.

Since 2010, they have been linked by treaties providing for a shared expeditionary force, missile development and even nuclear testing.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, herself a former ambassador to London, nevertheless told RTL radio on Monday that “because of Britain’s attitude to the European question, (relations) aren’t up to the role our two countries ought to play” on the global stage.

For now, Britain’s leaders are pursuing the go-it-alone slogan of “Global Britain”.

“There’s absolutely no political payback for working closely with the EU” on foreign policy, Menon said.

Britain has sided with other European powers including France in trying to bring the United States and Iran back to the deal to limit Tehran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

But while both have responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with strong sanctions, some in France complain of British grandstanding over arms deliveries, while London mistrusts Paris’ insistence on keeping talks going with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And there was a fierce clash with Paris last year over the Indo-Pacific, when Britain struck an alliance dubbed AUKUS with the US and Australia that saw Sydney cancel a lucrative order for French submarines.

“The AUKUS affair is ‘Global Britain’ applied to Asia… It’s logical,” said Jean-Pierre Maulny of the Paris-based Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS).

“But that logic runs against French interests and those of the Europeans in general,” he added.

“I don’t think that Liz Truss (becoming prime minister) will change a huge amount,” Maulny predicted, adding, “In the short term we have no hope (of improving ties)”.