The ability of President Hamid Karzai to maintain inter-ethnic unity will determine whether history will be repeated in Afghanistan, says B Raman
Tahir Ali assesses Pakistan's draining popularity among Afghanistan's power circles and the Taliban, both of whom are fed up with Islamabad's double-standards
Peace talks with the Taliban, trade and security would be high on the agenda during a meeting between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in the Afghan capital Kabul.
A large explosion rocked Kabul's main diplomatic and government residential district on Tuesday morning killing at least four civilians and injuring several others.
As tensions mounted in the Persian Gulf, Pakistan on Thursday assured Iran that it will not provide any assistance to American forces in the event of a United States attack on Tehran.
Simultaneously more than 60 countries led by the United States and the European Union issued a joint statement urging those in positions of power and authority across Afghanistan to bear responsibility and accountability for the protection of human life and property, and for the immediate restoration of security and civil order.
Afghan-Taliban commanders Aminullah and Maulvi Bismillah represented supreme militant commander Mullah Omer in three round of talks with the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who "partially participated" in the parleys, sources familiar with the process told PTI on Wednesday.
To step up pace of reconciliation talks, the Afghanistan government has opened direct contacts with the Al Qaeda-linked Haqqani faction of Taliban, which is believed to have close ties to Pakistan's military intelligence. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's government has been in direct contact with Jalaludin Haqqani, the ageing leader of the Haqqani network, which is based in Pakistan and run by his eldest son Sirajudin.
There were speculations galore about the Pakistan premier's early departure in the wake of the Indo-Pak bilateral talks, reports Prasanna D Zore from Addu
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday condemned what he described as India's 'brutal' handling of protests in Jammu and Kashmir.
Applauding India's key role in Afghanistan, the United States has said that New Delhi has been helpful in providing training to the security forces of the war-torn country to help improve the situation there.
The United States is set to give control of a controversial prison having nearly 3,000 Taliban rebels and terror suspects to the Afghan authorities.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will host a quadrilateral summit with leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan on Wednesday to discuss the situation in the volatile Af-Pak region.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pointed out that Washington's current difficulties with Islamabad are nothing new and a repeat of earlier disagreements.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who arrived in Kabul on Wednesday on a two-day visit, discussed cooperation in the field of security and developmental projects with President Hamid Karzai and Foreign Minister Rangin Dafdar Spanta.
The war-ravaged nation of Afghanistan has offered to try and help bring about a rapprochement between the United States and Iran, even as Washington continues its campaign to isolate Teheran over its alleged nuclear weapons programme in violation of its nonproliferation obligations.
An independent United Nations-appointed panel probing the killing of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto will on Thursday release its sensitive report on her assassination in 2007
Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh's low-key visit to Kabul on Thursday is a visit for "reassurance", said a diplomat who is one of the most well informed officials on Afghanistan in New Delhi. "When PM Singh will meet Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai he is likely to say that India is a friend of Afghanistan and Indians are standing shoulder-to-shoulder in Afghan's endeavour for peace and development."
National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon has reached Kabul to review the security of Indians working on several development projects across Afghanistan.
In the wake of last week's Kabul attack, National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon will travel to Kabul on Friday to discuss security of about 4000 Indians working on developmental projects across Afghanistan, for which the government has certain proposals.
With Hamid Karzai stonewalling every US effort to conclude a bilateral security agreement, the Obama Administration is pinning its hopes on India to persuade the Afghan President to sign the deal and end the current political imbroglio on the issue.
Taliban militants in the terror hotbed of North Waziristan have threatened the Pakistan government with a "big war" if the country's army launched any military operation in the region.
In its first public appeal to Taliban and other Afghanistan-based militant groups, Pakistan on Friday asked them to "turn a new leaf" and join direct talks with the Kabul government under a peace process aimed at ending the decade-old war in the neighbouring country.
As the second Hamid Karzai government settles down to business in Afghanistan, India must seriously focus on long-term intervention and assistance in stabilising one of its most important neighbours, a variety of Afghan and Indian politicians, analysts and diplomats said in Kabul and New Delhi.
Pakistan is reportedly lobbying for new government in Kabul without Hamid Karzai as president.
Ustad Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf, Afghan president Hamid Karzai's first choice as the speaker of the new Afghan parliament, is at once the perfect bridge the latter needs to reach out extensively in the Islamic world and Pakistan, says former diplomat MK Bhadrakumar, possibly the first and last India to have met Sayyaf in his native village
Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke will be travelling to Europe to consult leaders in Germany, France and Russia, before proceeding to Kabul to attend the inauguration of Hamid Karzai for his second term as Afghanistan's president.
United States Vice President Joe Biden on Monday made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan to have an on ground assessment of the situation in the war-torn country, less than six months before the scheduled start of drawdown of American troops.
Warning of 'shocking scale' of vote rigging in the Afghan Presidential elections, the main challenger to Hamid Karzai has said the poll fraud will remove all legitimacy from the new government.
India cannot be expected to ignore its genuine interests in Afghanistan just to keep Pakistan in good humour. While for Afghanistan, the pact is a way of trying to deal with an increasingly more menacing Pakistan, says Harsh V Pant.
Tahir Ali examines the consequences of the assassination of former president Burhanuddin Rabbani on attempts to broker peace in Afghanistan
With the US having announced that it will begin pulling out its troops from Afghanistan from July 2011, India said on Thursday that "international presence" in the war-torn country was needed for a much longer time.
According to reports, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has talked to Indian External Affairs Minister SM Krishna as well as his Pakistani counterpart, Shah Mehmood Qureshi on the telephone to raise the prospect of another "talk about talks".
Diplomatic observers and South Asia experts in the US do not believe that two of India's major concerns that Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh brought up with President Obama on Afghanistan, during his state visit in November and again recently on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit have been alleviated during the summit between Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
He said that he had no intention of remaining in exile in the Gulf nation and was "in talks" to return home.
Making an aggressive move on its foreign policy front, the new United States administration has reached out to key world leaders, with President Barack Obama himself calling heads of the states of Canada, Saudi Arabia and Britain, besides United Nations chief Ban Ki-Moon.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reached out to as many as 21 foreign leaders including Minister of External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Amid a series of anti-US rhetorics coming from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the White House showed signs of "frustration" on Monday with regard to this war-torn country, where its forces have been engaged in war against terrorism for the past eight years.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday demanded a thorough investigation into the presence of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan for several years, but ruled out a United States-type operation by India to eliminate Pak-based terrorists wanted by it.
"Welcome to your second home". This is how President Hamid Karzai welcomed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Kabul on Thursday, with the latter responding by assuring the Afghan leader that India will stand with the country through "thick and thin".
Claiming that it was not in "direct conflict" with India, the Taliban has said there was a possibility of reconciliation even as it justified the February 26 Kabul attack on Indians as a "legitimate" action.
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