DELHI

THE HINDU

TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2012

INTERNATIONAL

13

takes over Kazakh ruling party wins Al-Qaeda town in Yemen snap parliamentary polls
SANAA: Al-Qaeda militants

Nazarbayevs Nur Otan gets 80.74% vote

Vladimir Radyuhin
MOSCOW: Kazakhstans ruling

China walks the tightrope in the Persian Gulf

Deeper engagement sought in oil and gas sector with Riyadh
Atul Aneja
DUBAI: Without undermining

its ties with Iran despite growing military tensions in the region, China is seeking a deeper engagement in the oil and gas sector with Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states, as part of a developing contingency plan, in order to ensure stable energy supplies. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has just concluded a visit to Saudi Arabia and has arrived on Monday in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as part of a regional tour, which will also take him to Qatar, a leading international natural gas exporter. The visit takes place shortly after Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary of the United States, journeyed to Beijing to implore the Chinese leadership to scale down its energy dependence on Iran, Chinas third largest supplier of oil. Washington is trying to throttle Irans oil exports, apparently to dissuade Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapon capability a move that Iran has countered by threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz through which 20 per cent of the worlds oil supplies pass.

China, as was evident during Mr. Geithners visit, has rejected acceptance of a linkage between oil exports by Iran, and its atomic programme. Nevertheless, Beijing appears to have adopted a double track approach of keeping Iran engaged while expanding energy ties with Tehrans Arab foes, chiey Saudi Arabia. Wens visit shows that China is seeking to reinforce its energy security in the region, but it does not necessarily mean that Beijing no longer regards Iran as a major oil supplier, said Han Xiaoping, chief information ofcer of the China Energy consultancy. Speaking to the Chinese daily Global Times, Mr. Han acknowledged that if the Strait of Hormuz is blocked, 40 per cent of Chinas total oil imports will be affected, and the country would face a major energy crisis. Aware of the vulnerability of the Strait of Hormuz, Chinas top rener Sinopec, during Mr. Wens visit, nalised an $8.5 billion deal with Saudi Aramco, the state-run energy giant, to build a renery at Yanbu. Mr. Han noted that the Yanbu renery plant is located on the Red Sea coast

and will not be affected by a military conict in the Strait [of Hormuz]. In the UAE, the China Petroleum Engineering and Construction Corporation, a Chinese state-owned company is also engaged in constructing the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline, a strategic project which will daily carry around 1.5 million barrels of crude produced in the UAE to the port of Fujairah, by-passing the Strait of Hormuz. Aware of plans by its adversaries of cushioning a drop in Irans exports in the world market, through extra production by the Arab-Gulf States, Iran has warned OPEC countries of the Persian Gulf not to cooperate. In an interview to the Tehran daily Shargh, Mohammad-Ali Khatibi, Irans OPEC governor said: If oil producers bordering the Persian Gulf show the green light to replace Irans crude with theirs, whatever happens, they will be key players in a move to sanction Irans oil. Mr. Khatibi said he was sceptical whether OPEC had a surplus capacity of 4 million barrels a day, which would be required to offset Irans contribution to the international oil pool.

party has swept snap parliamentary elections, but two other parties won seats for the rst time. President Nursultan Nazarbayevs party, Nur Otan, won 80.74 per cent of the vote, according to preliminary results announced on Monday. Two other nominally Opposition parties scraped past the 7 per cent threshold the pro-business Ak Zhol, headed by a former functionary of the ruling party, and the Communist Peoples Party of Kazakhstan, a splinter from the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, which was suspended for six months in October for violating the law on public organisations. After winning re-election with over 95 per cent of the votes last year, Mr. Nazarbayev ordered early elections to Parliament in order to improve his democratic credentials with the West. Mr. Nazarbayev, who has ruled

Nursultan Nazarbayev
Kazakhstan since 1990, has been criticised for having a one-party Parliament (in the 2007 elections Nur Otan won 88 per cent and no other party won seats). Under a 2009 law if only one party wins parliamentary seats, the next runner-up will get at least two seats. Out of seven parties contesting the poll, four, including the ercely Opposition All-National Social Democratic Party (OSDP), failed to win seats. Many Opposition

candidates had been disqualied from the election and several parties had been denied registration. The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitored the vote, praised competent administration of the election but said the vote counting was not transparent. As a result, in many instances, it was not possible for observers to determine whether voters choices were honestly reected, the OSCE said noting that its observers detected at least a dozen cases of ballot-box stufng. However, monitors from the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) said the vote was transparent, competitive and free. It was important for Mr. Nazarbayev that the election was peaceful and orderly in the town of Zhanaozen, where armed clashes occurred between striking oil workers and security forces in December in which 16 people were killed.

seized full control of a town south of the Yemeni capital on Monday, overrunning army positions, storming the local prison and freeing at least 150 inmates, security ofcials said. The capture of Radda in Bayda province, some 160 km south of the capital Sanaa, underscores the growing strength of the al-Qaeda in Yemen as it continues to take advantage of the weakness of

a central government struggling to contain nearly a year of massive anti-government protests. The Opposition has accused President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is to step down this month in line with a power transfer deal, of allowing the militants to overrun the city to bolster his claims that he must remain in power to secure the country against the rising power of Islamist militants. AP

Huntsman opts out of race

MYRTLE BEACH, (SOUTH CAROLINA): Jon Huntsman, the for-

mer U.S. ambassador to China, ended his struggling presidential bid on Monday and called on Republicans to unite in support of frontrunner Mitt Romney. I believe it is now time for our party to unite around the candidate best equipped to defeat Barack Obama, he told supporters in South Carolina days ahead of the GOP primary in the State.

Despite our differences and the space between us on some of the issues, I believe that candidate is governor Mitt Romney. Mr. Huntsman had been running in last place in the polls ahead of South Carolinas January 21 primary, and his moderate positions had failed to draw support in a race bitterly contested by conservatives. He used his parting remarks to decry the harsh neg-

ative attacks that have characterised the Republican battle to nd a candidate to go up against Mr. Obama, the Democratic incumbent, in November. At its core, the Republican Party is a party of ideas, but the current toxic form of our political discourse does not help our cause, and its just one of the many reasons why the American people have lost trust in their elected leaders. AFP

Krishna in Colombo to discuss wide-ranging issues

External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa take part in a Hindu religious ceremony to mark Thai Pongal festival in Colombo on Monday. PHOTO: AFP
R.K. Radhakrishnan
COLOMBO: Even as the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil National Alliance hardened their positions on the question of devolution and autonomy to Tamils in Sri Lanka, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna arrived here on Monday to hold wideranging talks with his counterpart, G.L. Peiris, and a host of political and civil society leaders, on political and development issues. The four-day visit will take him from one end of the country to the other Jaffna in the north to Galle in south and expand the extent of cooperation with Sri Lanka. According to a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs, EAM would visit Kilinochchi and Jaffna in Northern Sri Lanka in connection with Government of India assisted projects and also hand over the rst lot of housing units at Ariyali, Jaffna. EAM would also be visiting Galle in southern Sri Lanka where he is expected to inaugurate a segment of the Southern Railway Project implemented under a Line of Credit extended by India.

Mr. Krishna had an informal meeting with leaders of the country on Monday, including President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Prof. Peiris. He is slated to meet President Mahinda Rajapaksa formally on Tuesday. Mr. Krishna joined Mr. Rajapaksa at his Temple Trees residence in the pongal celebrations, and witnessed a cultural show. He also met representatives of the Tamil National Alliance, the only credible representatives of the Tamil people of the north, ahead of the TNA and the government commencing a crucial round of talks on Tuesday. Mr. Krishna and his team will watch keenly the on-going talks between the government and the TNA, to achieve an acceptable political solution for Tamils in Sri Lanka. Despite the two sides talking for more than a year, there has been no discernible progress. Mr. Krishna will also be occupied by the problem faced by Indian shermen, and will be briefed on the progress between the two sides in the Joint Working Group mechanism, set up to solve issues in the sector.
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