'I don't believe in focusing on the bad things that have happened in my life.'
'This, together with Chinese revisionism, will constitute the major test of the international system.'
'Putting tanks on the Ladakh border is not enough to combat China, what is needed to ensure resilience against any cyber-attacks or attacks in outer space or China flexing its economic muscle, as it did with Australia.'
Regional States will be worried that the US's nascent engagement with the Taliban behind the fig leaf of humanitarian aid enables the return of US intelligence personnel to Afghanistan, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Pakistan missed a valuable opportunity to create goodwill with the United States and other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation members when it failed to announce a reopening of NATO supply routes to Afghanistan at the summit held Sunday and Monday in Chicago, says Lisa Curtis.
From Covid to climate change, Shankar Acharya's look at some of the trends and events that might shape 2022.
American analysts and their camp followers in India are talking absolute rubbish when they try to establish that India is facing a Hobson's choice in regard of Donbass, called upon to take sides between Russia and the West, asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
More than India's alignment with the Quad, India's defence cooperation and partnership with the USA is of critical importance, notes Rup Narayan Das.
The US has hailed a power-sharing deal between rival Afghan presidential candidates as a "moment of extraordinary statesmanship" that ended a prolonged dispute threatening to plunge the war-torn nation into further political turmoil and complicate the NATO troops withdrawal.
Lashing out at the United States for putting a bounty of USD 10 million on his head, a combative Hafiz Mohammad Saeed on Tuesday said Washington was "frustrated" with him for his countrywide protests against the resumption of NATO supplies and drone strikes.
Welcoming fellow leaders including Macron and US President Donald Trump to a summit of the NATO defence alliance in Brussels, premier Charles Michel said the Western bloc must go on setting aside differences to protect each other.
Pakistan's parliament will decide the contours of future relations with the United States and its allies after November's cross-border NATO air strike, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said on Thursday.
Noting that "time had come to review relations", Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said that Americans have been issued a notice to vacate Shamsi airbase in line with the cabinet's decision after the cross-border NATO attack that killed 24 soldiers.
Delhi has come to accept the Taliban takeover in Kabul as a reality and seems increasingly unsure of its dogmatic view of the Taliban as a mere proxy of the Pakistani military and security establishment, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The temporary suspension of the crucial North Atlantic Treaty Organisation supply route to Afghanistan by Islamabad last year in response to incursions by allied forces and the Davis Raymond episode reflects the fragile nature of the United States-Pakistan relationship, the Obama administration said in a new report.
Although most of Kosovo is ethnically Albanian, many Serbs consider it their native homeland and a cradle of their culture. Some 13,000 people were killed in the 1998-1999 war, sparked by clashes between the forces of the rump Yugoslav state -- Serbia and Montenegro -- and Kosovo separatists. The conflict ended when NATO carried out an air campaign against Serbia.
Handke emerged as a vocal defender of the Serbs during the bloody collapse of the former Yugoslavia, even comparing them to Jews under the Nazis, a remark he later retracted.
'The India-Pakistan relationship is in a deep freeze, though it could be a lot worse had there not been a new LoC ceasefire a year ago.' 'The India-Pakistan relationship will only start to thaw if the Pakistani military decides it's prepared to push for detente.'
Any form of entanglement with India or the US on the strategic plane will be anathema to Sri Lanka's Rajapaksa rulers, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Obama spoke to Greek PM Alexis Tsipras in the capital, Athens, as part of a final tour that also takes in Germany and Peru.
The move is a critical step in the transition to full Afghan control by the end of 2014 as announced by US President Barack Obama at a NATO summit in Lisbon last year, The Express Tribune newspaper quoted its sources as saying.
The Western powers appear to regard Delhi as the most logical destination in the region in these extraordinary times -- as a counterpoint to the ascendance of political Islam and a rising red star over Afghanistan, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Harris slammed President Donald Trump and pledged to 'rejoin' the Paris agreement on Climate Change and 'strengthen and re-enter' the Iran nuclear deal. "Joe Biden and our administration is gonna have a massive job to repair the damage done by Donald Trump and his administration, and to restore our place in the world," she said.
Biden and Modi committed that the US and India will work closely together to win the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, renew their partnership on climate change, rebuild the global economy in a way that benefits the people of both countries, and stand together against the scourge of global terrorism, the White House said in a readout of the call.
he United States did what we went to do in Afghanistan, to get to terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and deliver justice to Osama bin Laden, and to degrade the terrorist threat to keep Afghanistan from becoming a base, from which attacks could be continued against the United States.
Beijing's growing assertiveness as kingmaker in Kabul has suffered a setback with Washington quietly moving in, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
India on Sunday brought back nearly 400 people, including 329 of its nationals and two Afghan lawmakers, in three different flights as part of its efforts to evacuate its citizens from Kabul in the backdrop of the deteriorating situation in the city after its takeover by the Taliban
Harris recounted how she and her team got a call that Biden wanted to talk and then got another call where she was told Biden wanted to do a zoom call. She described how she went in "our little makeshift office" and then when the call started Biden immediately asked her to join the ticket. After referring to her mother, Harris also described how husband Doug Emhoff's ear was on the door outside the room listening in on the call. Eventually Jill Biden and Emhoff joined the call with Biden and Harris.
'Throughout the nearly 20-year US-led war, State sponsorship from Pakistan has been a constant.'
India and the US also made a strong push for the intra-Afghan peace process to end violence in Afghanistan and ensure that it does not become home to terrorism, and vowed to deepen cooperation in the Indo-Pacific and on COVID-19 response and economic recovery.
Elusive Taliban leader Mullah Omar has issued a "code of conduct" to his militant colleagues asking them to avoid "unnecessary" suicide bombings and civilian casualties while waging war against "the oppressors", which was described as "sham" and propaganda exercise by NATO.
The US is not in a forgiving mood for being humiliated in such a manner by an insurgent force and made to look 'loser' internationally, predicts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Remember the US withdrawal agreement was signed in February 2020. In the intervening period, a proper evacuation plan ought to have been in place. It was not. Consequently, tens of thousands of Afghans who had worked as interpreters, drivers, suppliers of goods and services, etc, face brutal retribution from the Taliban, Virendra Kapoor points out.
In a significant policy statement on the Taliban which is making big gains in its offensive in Afghanistan, China has asked it to make a "clean break" from all terrorist forces, especially the Al Qaida-backed Uyghur Muslim militant group ETIM fighting for the volatile Xinjiang province's independence.
The entire gamut of China's activities is aimed at keeping India on tenterhooks, cause fatigue to its troops and keeping its security system unstable, so that it cannot play a meaningful role in international geopolitics as an effective partner of the US and Japan, observes Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd).
'This fall is nothing. We could see worse if everybody hits the panic button.'
India is worried about Pakistan getting the Taliban to ignite trouble in Kashmir, observes Ramesh Menon.
US President Joe Biden said on Monday that he stands "squarely behind his decision" to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan as he blamed the Afghan leadership for giving in to the Taliban without any fight. He also warned the Taliban of swift and forceful response from the US if they attack American personnel or disrupt their operations in Afghanistan.
The meeting is taking place under the shadow of a fierce border row between India and China, both members of the influential bloc.
