"There seems to be a growing recognition that the Taliban and other miscreants, to use the Pakistanis own word for this, are a threat to the entire country and are alien to the spirit of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the founders of Pakistan," Holbrooke said at a press conference after the meeting of Friends of Democratic Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New York on Thursday.
At a recent Track II conference of Indians and Pakistanis, predictions about the fate of Richard Holbrooke, the key interlocutor for US policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Af-Pak, because nothing can be solved in Afghanistan without addressing Pakistan) were dire. He's losing his job and going home -- after all, he's achieved very little, and he's abrasive and rude.
Marc Grossman, former United States under secretary of state for political affairs, is expected to replace the late Richard Holbrooke as Barack Obama administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. The post has been vacant since Richard Holbrooke, 68, who was the Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan for two years, died suddenly last December.An announcement in this regard is expected to be made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Addressing New Delhi's concerns about peace talks with Taliban, the United States told India that it will not let the rebels enter a power sharing agreement in Afghanistan, according to leaked US cables by Wikileaks.
'We are very grateful that the US takes the trouble to keep us informed and to consult with us as this situation is being managed by them,' Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor tells rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa.
Richard Holbrooke, the United States Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has asserted that the Obama administration "believes that what happens in Afghanistan and Pakistan is of vital interest to our national security and that India is a country that we must keep in the closest consultations with."
"Now if the Indians were supporting those miscreants that would be extraordinarily bad (and) really dangerous. But they're not. There is no evidence at all that the Indians are supporting the miscreants in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas or North West Frontier Province or Waziristan. None," he said.
Vikram J Singh, who was the senior defense adviser to Richard Holbrooke, the erstwhile United States special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been appointed to a key Pentagon post -- deputy assistant secretary of defense for south and Southeast Asia.
Musharraf will have to strain every nerve to gain political traction in Pakistan
Addressing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, America's Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke identified the Lashkar as the group, which planned and executed the 26/11 attacks.
"Special Representative Holbrooke will also travel to India and the United Kingdom where he will have additional meetings with counterparts and government officials," a State Department announcement said, without mentioning the specific dates when he would be in India.
US President Barack Obama's Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke has said that the US would be releasing $200 million for Pakistan under the Coalition Support Fund soon.
The United States' mounting pressure on Pakistan -- to go after the Afghan Taliban inside Balochistan -- could affect the cohesion of the Pakistan army and lead to the destabilisation of the government, according to US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke.Earlier, Holbrooke said, "We will not be able to succeed in Afghanistan unless our Pakistan policy is equally successful".
The Obama administration is "disturbed" by the release of Jamaat-ud-Daawa chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who was placed under house arrest nearly six months ago in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, US Special Representative Richard Holbrooke said on Wednesday.
The Barack Obama administration's top diplomat for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, has admitted that the United States is getting battered by the Taliban in the information war in the Federally Administered Tribal Area and the Northwest Frontier Province in Pakistan. He warned that the 'success' in the US-led assault on these militant groups would ring hollow if there is no propaganda victory against these extremists."We are losing that war," he said.
United States has stepped up diplomatic efforts to defuse the deepening political crisis in Pakistan, with Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke asking the country's top leadership to resolve differences with the PML-N so that they could focus on the war against militancy.
'Much as the Palestinian issue remains the core obstacle to peace in the Middle East, the question of Kashmir must be addressed in some meaningful way to bring stability to this region,' he said. He hoped the Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan will work towards a 'just and reasonable' solution to the issue.
The United States has once again rejected the notion regarding it playing a role of an 'intermediary' between India and Pakistan to help both nuclear powered countries to resolve long pending issues between them.
United States Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke on Wednesday said that Pakistani leaders brought up the issue of India's alleged involvement in Balochistan, but did not give any credible evidence to support their claim.
India's unilateral offer was again relayed by the then Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon in his meeting with the Special US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke on February 16, 2009 in New Delhi, wherein the latter praised India's developmental role in Afghanistan.
The United States on Thursday said that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba was as dangerous as Taliban and Al-Qaeda with which it was working in close coordination and that Pakistan has been asked to deny it a foothold in that country.
In the first high-level contact between India and the new United States government, National Security Adviser M K Narayanan is expected to meet Richard Holbrooke, special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, in Munich during his three-day visit that began on Friday.
Special United States Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke said he would soon head towards the troubled region in South Asia to have a first-hand assessment of the situation on the ground.In his acceptance speech, soon after he was appointed as the Special US Representative for the troubled region by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Holbrooke termed the Pakistan situation as extremely complex.
Holbrooke is currently in Afghanistan after completing a two-day visit to Pakistan. He is said to have told the Pakistani leadership during his visit that there was a need to keep India informed about developments taking place in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari has rejected United States' strategy of linking policy on Pakistan and Afghanistan in a bid to end the Taliban insurgency and bring stability to the region.
"As the ISI tries to rein in those militant proxies that have slipped from Islamabad's grasp, it will likely try to regain their support by redirecting their attention away from Pakistan and toward India, an enemy on which both Islamabad and the militants can agree. As a result, it is likely India will come under attack again," Stratfor warned.
Holbrooke's statement is contrary to India's position that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of the country; which has its physical boundary with Afghanistan.
The Obama administration is apparently committed to alleviating India-Pakistan tensions and consequently influencing the Pakistani army to focus on the internal terrorist threat from the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and not India, in order to advance Washington's AfPak agenda.
India should review its Kashmir policy for itself, not for others, C Christine Fair, senior political scientist, RAND Corporation, tells KS Manjunath.
During the meetings, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Special Envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan S K Lambah and the top US officials discussed the progress made in Afghanistan so far and how the two countries can work together to achieve their common objective of defeat al Qaeda and the Taliban, and help in the emergence of a stable and democratic Afghanistan.
United States President Barack Obama has appointed Bruce Riedel, a veteran Central Investigative Agency analyst for nearly three decades, to chair an inter-agency policy review of US policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan.Obama's press spokesman Robert Gibbs said that this policy review chaired by Riedel would have to be completed before the summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in April.
Al Qaeda has started feeling the heat as a result of the intensification of American efforts against it in the Af-Pak region, a top Obama Administration official has said.
The United States has asked Pakistan to prove its seriousness in fighting terrorism by matching their rhetoric with that of action on the ground than by mere "verbal commitment".
Pakistan said it would approach the upcoming foreign secretary-level talks with India with an "open mind" in the interest of normalising bilateral relations though "the vibes emanating from the other side have not been encouraging".
The foreign ministers from Pakistan and Afghanistan are arriving in Washinton D.C next week for consultations, as part of United States' efforts to contact high-level leaders from the region to frame its new Afghan policy.
Influential American Senators have said they would oppose Obama administration's proposal to triple civilian aid to Pakistan and substantially increase assistance to its army without clear cut benchmarks and accountability provisions in it.
'He has about as much chance of coming back to power as (former Soviet) President (Mikhail) Gorbachev,' The News quoted Richard Holbrooke, US administration's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, as saying to a gathering of American diplomats and security experts.
The appointment of veteran diplomat Peter Burleigh as charge d'affaires at the American embassy in New Delhi was a Department decision and not on the recommendation of Richard Holbrooke, Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, as had been rumored because of their earlier longtime working relationship, senior Administration sources have told rediff.com.
On the eve of US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke's visit to the South Asia, The Guardian newspaper has said Pakistan is the greatest foreign policy challenge for the Barack Obama administration.
The massive US civilian aid flowing into Pakistan would be squandered or stolen, a powerful American Senator has said, arguing that rampant corruption in that country would make effective aid distribution a challenge.
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