Pakistan Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on Thursday called for transparent ties with US based on mutual trust as he met American commander in Afghanistan, days after the two sides struck a deal ending a seven-month blockade of NATO supply routes.
Making his way into Afghanistan unannounced, United States President Barack Obama signed a landmark strategic partnership agreement strengthening post-war ties with Kabul after 2014 when American combat forces return home.
"Indeed, nearly all of the jihadi groups operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, LeT, and others have joined together in an extended terrorist network that shares the same goals, including destabilising Afghanistan and destroying the Pakistani state," said Congressman Howard Berman, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Ahead of crucial talks with his Indian counterpart, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday said he was ousted from power in a military coup in 1999 because he started peace talks with India.
'The greatest threat faced by India does not come from Pakistan, it comes from terrorism... It is easier to secure the borders of the US; it is not so easy to make India's borders secure,' Pulizer Prize-winning journalist Mark Mazzetti tells Rediff.com's Sanchari Bhattacharya.
Trump reiterated his offer to help the two South-Asian neighbours only if both of them want.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari sought "greater transparency" in relations with the United States and called for an end to American drone strikes, saying they fuelled militancy in his country.
To get back into reckoning and ensure India's interests are given their due in Afghanistan, we need to evaluate a new mix of soft and hard options, writes Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
United States President Barack Obama is at loggerheads with his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari, refusing to meet him apparently over blockage of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation supply lines into Afghanistan, an issue which continues to strain ties between two nations, American media reports said on Monday.
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.
The report said death squads were allegedly constituted for the mission and that a cell comprising a 'Punjabi volunteer' of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi carried out Bhutto's assassination.
Lauding India's contribution to the Afghanistan reconstruction efforts, an influential American senator has said a strong India-United States partnership is an important factor for the peace and prosperity of the war-torn country.
"We want to work closely (with) Pakistan to create a more stable and secure Pakistan as well," he said.
Modi will address world leaders from the iconic United Nations General Assembly hall on the morning of September 25, a day after he participates in the Quad Leaders' Summit in Washington, DC hosted by Biden on September 24.
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday rejected American accusations linking Pakistan's spy agency Inter Services Intelligence with the Haqqani terror network, saying the allegations reflected "policy disarray" within the United States administration on achieving peace in Afghanistan.
Slamming the United States for lack of cooperation in the probe into the massacre of 16 villagers in a house-to-house rampage by an American army sniper, an enraged Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai on Friday said he is at the "the end of the rope".
An American soldier who massacred 16 people, including women and children, in a house-to-house shooting rampage in Afghanistan could face death penalty if convicted, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has said.
Disappointed over Pakistan's slow pace of trial in Mumbai terror attack case, a top American lawmaker has demanded that the seven suspects, including Lashkar-e-tayiba operational commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, be handed over to the International Criminal Court to bring them to justice.
The US intelligence community assesses that the Taliban leader Mullah Omar is now dead, although the circumstances of his death is not yet clear, the White House has said.
The US favours a significant role for India in ensuring peace in Afghanistan but said it has to decide whether it wants a military presence in the war-ravaged country, a top American military commander said on Friday.
The prime minister was received at the airport by India's Ambassador to the US, Harsh Vardhan Shringla, and his American counterpart Ken Juster.
US President Barack Obama and his Defence Secretary Leon Panetta have praised special forces for conducting a successful rescue operation in Afghanistan that left one American soldier and seven terrorists dead.
The deadly American air strike on a hospital in northern Afghan city of Kunduz that killed 22 people, including women and children, was a mistake, a top US commander in Afghanistan on Tuesday said as he conceded that they were taken by surprise by the recent Taliban upsurge.
Trump's move came on Thursday a day after the House Speaker urged him to reschedule his annual State of the Union address slated for January 29, citing security concerns triggered by the shutdown that has entered its 27th day.
India cannot continue with its ultra cautious stand on Afghanistan for much longer given the faster than expected reduction of the military footprint by the Western powers, says Harsh V Pant.
Sixty per cent Americans say that the war in Afghanistan has not been not worth fighting and just 30 per cent believe that the Afghan public supports the US mission in their country -- marking the sour state of attitudes on the war even before the shooting rampage allegedly by a US soldier this weekend.
Annet Mahendru -- the half-Indian making waves in The Americans -- on her love for Bollywood, daal-chawal and being a Russian spy.
Trump Administration has "already wisely restricted assistance to Pakistan, but there is much more to be done
The United States has ruled out any change in its Afghanistan strategy in view of the recent violence in the restive country, particularly the killing of American servicemen after the burning of Qurans at a military base.
Both Indians were employed as security guards with American company DynCorp, official sources told PTI.
A senior US diplomat involved in Afghanistan has become the first American official to resign in protest over the eight-year war, saying it was fuelling the insurgency in the war-torn country.
Senior American and Pakistani defence and military officials met in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Monday to discuss the regional security environment and the situation along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Trump is encouraging a cooling of tension between India and Pakistan, the White House said on Friday.
The Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent says a series of drone attacks have killed nearly 50 of its members, including deputy head Ustad Ahmad Farooq and Qari Imran, the group's central council member and in charge of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
The United States on Thursday said it plans to shift to "support role" in Afghanistan by 2013 so as to complete the security transition to Afghan forces by 2014 even as it sought to play down President Hamid Karzai's order to pull out American troops from villages and confine them to bases.
'Pakistan may have moved back from this devilish plot in 2007, but there is no guarantee it won't be on the drawing boards again,' warns Rajeev Sharma.
Trump said he had a "productive discussion" with Turnbull on a wide range of issues in New York.
The mission that left 30 American soldiers, including 22 Navy Seals, dead on Saturday morning in eastern Afghanistan was just one of the dozens of operations carried out by United States Special Operations Forces every week in Afghanistan.
Both statesmen possess a cultivated pugnacious style which they keep in reserve and can at will bring into play, and despite the mutual distrust in Russian-American relations, they are proponents of detente, quintessentially, who take their mission deadly seriously, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
In a statement issued on Monday, the US Commission for International Religious Freedom said that it was deeply troubled over the passage of the bill in Lok Sabha.
