'Trump will absolutely back New Delhi on its position that Pakistan must do more to crack down on terrorists that threaten India.'
In the wake of the recent hostilities, both sides have moved from weapons to words, with India dispatching several delegations to visit more than 30 capitals across the world. A similar effort by Pakistan is set to start on Jun 2.
These releases are in addition to 26 Taliban detainees freed last year by Pakistan.
The Pakistan Taliban is rapidly making inroads into the Punjab province despite contradictory claims by the Shahbaz Sharif government.
Top military officials from India and Pakistan highlighted their views at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, billed as Asia's premier defence forum, amid heightened tensions between the two sides following last month's military confrontation.
The Taliban will view India through the eyes of the ISI and can be relied upon to undertake hostile actions against this country, warns Virendra Kapoor.
Pakistan's national flag carrier on Thursday suspended flight operations to Afghanistan due to what it called "security concerns", hours after the Taliban government threatened to ban the airline unless it reduced the fare on the Kabul-Islamabad route to previous levels.
'This strike has certainly enhanced your image.' 'Otherwise, people would have called you a damp squib, capable of doing nothing except talking big.'
It is important for India to pay close attention to both the tone and substance of authoritative remarks coming out of Pakistan, explains former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
'The struggle of insurgents and pro-independence political activists is fuelled by a deep conviction that not only is a free Balochistan possible, but they also believe that Pakistan will inevitably break apart, leading to Balochistan's independence.'
'It will remain hostile to Indian interests owing to its close proximity to China.'
Although the United States have denied confirmation, but it's apparent that Tehrik-e-Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud has been killed in a recent US drone attack in South Waziristan, Pakistan. Mehsud's death signifies tremendous implications, and was possibly a result of intelligence penetration. Explains security expert B Raman
'I can see the world's concern. I am concerned. I have daughters who play cricket.'
Pakistan was waiting for an opportunity to bring the Jammu and Kashmir issue to the global agenda and resorted to the terrorism route to provoke India, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
'Every decision India makes along the LoC, it must also consider implications along the LAC.'
'We are too important to want to be paired with Pakistan but too intensely connected to it to successfully detach ourselves,' asserts Aakar Patel.
'We've moved from thousands killed yearly in Jammu and Kashmir to 127 last year.' 'Cross-border terrorism in Kashmir is being solved. We are winning it.'
The Taliban's rise will see an increase in infiltration on India's western border and terrorist groups in Pakistan will get funding from the Taliban, warns Brigadier Rajamani Kannan (retd).
A delegation led by J P Singh, joint secretary (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran) at the ministry of external affairs, visited Kabul on Thursday, June 2, 2022, to to survey Indian developmental projects in Afghanistan.
Pakistan, in recent months, has been increasingly frustrated by the Taliban government's reluctance to eliminate the terrorist groups, including the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
'Pakistan's only concern has been while they were on the FATF watch list was to distance their State institutions and organs from any direct connection with the actual execution of militancy inside Kashmir.'
'India won't take anything from Pakistan lying down.'
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Hakimullah Mehsud and three others were killed in the US drone attack in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area near the Afghan border on Friday.
'It is high time that the 'war on terror' is removed from our diplomatic toolbox.' 'Certainly, our parliamentarians have no role in it,' asserts Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'It was such a joy for me to return there today -- after 13 long years -- to be surrounded by the mountains, dip my hands in the cold river and laugh with my beloved cousins.'
But why should India be talking to the Taliban in the first place? There is no love lost there. India will never forget or forgive the humiliation to which the Taliban subjected it in the IC-814 hijack, notes Shekhar Gupta.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said the 2008 Mumbai terror attack marked a turning point in relations with Pakistan when Indians collectively felt that such behaviour from a neighbouring country could no longer be tolerated. Speaking at Charotar University of Science and Technology, Jaishankar acknowledged India's transformation under Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the last decade, while Pakistan has remained unchanged, continuing with what he termed as its "bad habits."
A senior Afghan interim government official on Monday confirmed that strikes in the Afghanistan provinces of Paktika and Khost along the Pakistan border have taken place.
Pakistan's Taliban leader Maulana Sufi Mohammed has indicated that Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-e-Mohammedi, which signed a peace deal with Pakistan government in restive Swat region, would not wage a struggle for Kashmiris.
Pakistani Taliban militants based in Afghanistan have threatened fresh attacks in Pakistan that will target anyone supporting the United States and promoting American interests in the region.
Terrorism and insurgency in J&K had subsided when India demolished East Pakistan -- for the simple reason that Pakistan understands power. We need to follow Chanakya's dictum of Saam, Daam, Dand, Bhed for strategising against Pakistan, asserts Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (Retd). The ground truth is that unless we are prepared to acknowledge our shortcomings, including massive intelligence failures, punish those responsible and take corrective actions, we will continue in the same vein, asserts Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (Retd).
The Taliban knows that Washington holds the key, points out Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has held both India and Pakistan responsible for the 'unrest in Kashmir' and has vowed to liberate and establish Islamic Shariah there.
While the United States has already shown dissatisfaction over Pakistan's claims that Dr Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani physician who helped the Central Intelligence Agency track down and kill Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, had relation with militants, the Pakistan Taliban have not only rejected the reports of any links with him, but has also said that the imprisoned doctor is 'wajib-ul-qatal' (one that deserve death penalty), as he helped the US to kill bin Laden
'If Pakistan's army wants to escalate violence in Kashmir, they have an unlimited supply of jihadis they can train and send. That's not an issue for them.'
'Five months after the elections in February 2024, the Pakistan army has not been able to break Imran Khan's resolve and break his political party.'
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Hakimullah Mehsud has warned that his fighters were planning orchestrated attacks against the government and the military to wrest control of areas that they had lost in the country's northwest.
Pakistan has too much at stake to allow even an iota of rapprochement between India and the Taliban, says Vivek Gumaste.
Pakistan on Tuesday said it had freed 26 Afghan Taliban prisoners, including former ministers Mullah Nooruddin Turabi and Maulvi Allah Dad, since last month as part of its efforts to give impetus to the reconciliation process in Afghanistan.
Ahmed Shah Massoud's assassination, 9/11 and the defeat and ejection of the Taliban suggested a break in Afghanistan's history, but the events of August 2021 and the Taliban's return shows how deeper continuities remained in place, points out T C A Raghavan, former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan.
