Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari played a key behind-the-scenes role in negotiations that helped end a stalemate in Pakistan-US ties over a deadly cross-border North Atlantic Treaty Organisation attack and paved the way for Islamabad's participation in a crucial summit on Afghanistan, official sources said.
Led by Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, the United States has apologised to the people of Afghanistan on the "inappropriate treatment" of the holy Quran by American soldiers at the Bagram Airbase in a central Afghan province.
Pakistan may earn $365 million annually under an agreement with the United States, following the reopening of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's supply routes for American troops in Afghanistan.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has warned that Islamabad will not tolerate any further unilateral action by the United States, like the raid that killed former Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in his Abbotabad hideout.
Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, blamed for the Mumbai terror attacks, has demanded that the Pakistan government should announce a date for parting ways with the United States and abandoning its war on terrorism.
A high-level group of Afghan, Pakistani and American officials will meet on Thursday for the first time since September last year for talks on the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan, including efforts to involve the Taliban in negotiations.
Six people were pulled out of their homes after thunderstorms dumped up to six inches in the southern part of Oklahoma City, prompting authorities to issue a flood warning.
The Taliban once again made their intentions clear on Sunday, with spectacular coordinated attacks which resulted in an 18-hour battle with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Afghan forces. With the looming political uncertainty, whispers of a civil war, the insurgents are well positioned to fill in the vacuum.
Pakistan and United States find themselves at odds with each other again with Islamabad rejecting the American probe into the deadly North Atlantic Treaty Organisation cross border strike that left 24 Pakistani soldiers dead and Washington standing by it "100 per cent".
Afghan security forces have killed all the Taliban attackers who unleashed a wave of coordinated suicide attacks targetting diplomatic area, NATO bases and the Parliament in Kabul, a top official said on Monday.
Heavily-armed Taliban suicide attackers on Sunday struck Afghanistan capital Kabul, with several explosions and gunfire rocking the diplomatic enclave as the militants took over a hotel and tried to enter the parliament.
The expression of remorse by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was enough to break the deadlock that had led to the blocking of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's supply routes for the last seven months, following the killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers in a cross-border NATO strike at the Salala check-post in November last year.
In further escalation of tension with the United States, Pakistan has asked for the visit of President Barack Obama's special envoy to be put on hold till it formulates its policies towards Washington, in the wake of the deadly strike by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, killing 24 Pakistani soldiers. Obama's Special Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Marc Grossman was scheduled to visit Pakistan as part of his ongoing tour to the region.
Outlawed Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat leader Ahmed Ludhianvi played a cat-and-mouse game for almost six hours with the police and paramilitary forces who were trying to prevent them from entering the Pakistani capital.
A North Atlantic Treaty Organisation officer in Afghanistan took about 45 minutes to notify a senior allied commander about Pakistan's calls that its outposts were under attack, according to new details of the probe into last month's air strike that killed 26 Pakistani soldiers.
Amid a deterioration in United States-Pakistan ties, China has assured Pakistan's political and militaryleadership of its support in maintaining sovereignty and internal stability and promised to help its 'trusted ally' play a bigger role in global and regional affairs.
In a fresh jolt to United States-Pakistan ties, the Pentagon on Monday said it is withdrawing its team of negotiators from Pakistan for a "short period of time", after talks failed to lift the six-month blockade of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's supply routes to war-torn Afghanistan.
Pakistani forces were "unusually accurate" as they fired shots on an Afghan-United States patrol on November 26, an American officer stationed in Afghanistan has said, providing new details about the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation attack that could put fresh strains on the already tattered US-Pak relations.
Pakistan is inching towards a decision on reopening North Atlantic Treaty Organisation supply routes, which were closed following a cross-border air strike in November, though it is expected to impose "tough conditions" like a hefty transit fee for the movement of container trucks and oil tankers. The issue of allowing the United States and its allies to resume using Pakistani routes for transporting supplies to foreign troops in Afghanistan figured at a meeting of leaders.
The Pakistan army on Sunday took over Shamsi airbase in the country's southwest after it was vacated by the United States forces in line with a deadline set by the government following a cross-border North Atlantic Treaty Organisation attack that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers.
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Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has summoned envoys in key world capitals for a meeting to review Pakistan's strategy on important foreign policy issues like the war on terrorism and relations with countries like the United States and India. Pakistan's envoys to the US, India, Afghanistan and several European countries are among those who have been asked to provide recommendations for forming strategies in the wake of the cross-border NATo raid.
Pakistan boycotted the Bonn Conference to emphasise to the world community the importance of its sovereignty even though it wants peace and stability in Afghanistan, Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said on Monday.
The White House has ruled out an apology to Islamabad for November 26 incident in which 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in cross-border fire by the North Atlantic Traty Organisation and said it is time that the two countries move ahead. "I wouldn't have anything new to offer on that beyond what we have said, that we deeply regret the incident. We have thoroughly investigated it. We shared the results of that investigation with the Pakistanis," said a US official.
Pakistan will soon reopen the ground lines of communication to Afghanistan, which were shut down last November following the death of 24 soldiers in a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's strike, the White House has said. "We continue to work with Pakistan on this issue. We did not anticipate that the supply line issue was going to be resolved prior to the summit. And our teams continue to meet and we are making diligent progress," said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
Pakistan is refusing to participate in the United States-led probe into North Atlantic Treaty Organisation bombing that left 24 Pakistani soldiers dead along the Afghanistan border last week, the Pentagon has said.
United States President Barack Obama should "show some courage" and apologise to Pakistan for a cross-border air strike by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces in Afghanistan that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last year, the ruling Pakistan People's Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said.
With the most recent nosedive in United States-Pakistan relations in the aftermath of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, ironically, India-Pakistan relations seem to be on a more solid footing than the so-called US-Pakistan strategic partnership, said Thomas Donnelly, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who specialises in defence and security policy.
Just days after a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation airstrike on Pakistani border posts, another incident of "heavy artillery fire" between the two forces reportedly broke out early on Wednesday across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border but was "quickly defused" and there was no loss of life, according to a media report.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Afghanistan forces came under fire from across the Pakistan border before they called in a deadly air strike on two Pakistani military posts that left 24 soldiers dead, media reports quoted Afghan and western officials as saying.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation attack that killed 24 Pakistani troops has widened the US-Pak rift, according to a leading American daily, which said the Obama administration's regret and Islamabad's anger over the strike reflects a "deepening distrust" that gets harder to repair with each new confrontation.
The Pakistani military on Monday rejected the regret expressed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation chief for a cross-border air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and warned that the action could have "grave consequences".
The United States on Tuesday said that North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries have decided it is important to have participation of Pakistan at the Chicago Summit on Afghanistan hoping that Islamabad would be able to reopen the supply routes by then.
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Ahead of signing of the deal, US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said the United States will closely watch the Taliban for their compliance with their commitments and calibrate the peace of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan with the group's action.
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Pakistan on Sunday described as "pure fiction" a US media report about possible American plans to secure the country's nuclear arsenal in the event of any extremist threat, saying no one should "underestimate" its capability to defend its national interests.
"The clean-up operations are continuing," he was quoted as saying by the state-run Anadolu news agency.
Continuing its tirade against the successful launch of Agni V, Chinese state media has again accused New Delhi of buckling under pressure from the North Atlantic Treaty organisation to cut down the missile's range from 9,000 km to 5,000 km.
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