A number of world leaders, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, on Friday called up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to express their solidarity with India in the wake of the deadly terror attacks in Mumbai.Besides Brown, other leaders to call up Singh included Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Mauritian Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam.
Among other things, presidents Pervez Musharraf and Hamid Karzai also discussed the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan- Pakistan gas pipeline project.
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".
India has completed the construction of the 218-km Zaranj-Delaram Highway in South-Western Afghanistan despite attacks by Taliban and the loss of precious lives of Indian nationals working on the project.
There has been a sharp increase in acts of terrorism in Afghanistan since the new Pakistan government assumed office in Islamabad in March.
Concerned over increasing influence of Taliban in Pakistan, the United States on Wednesday told top leadership in Islamabad that the "era of lip service was over" and it was now time to work plans and be very specific.
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.
In all, about 290 Indians are engaged in various projects in Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the Parliament on Friday that the "cowardly act" on February 26 in Kabul "will not bend our determination to help Afghanistan".
A feisty Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari says there is no likelihood of his being deposed in a military coup, but if it does happen it will be because the United States along with other democratic countries has had a hand in it.
American Senator John F Kerry, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who just returned from a trip to Afghanistan after twisting Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's arm to acquiesce to hold a run-off election after charges of massive fraud and corruption were uncovered in the recent election, has warned that Pakistan could become the epicenter of terrorism in the world, since it is now the headquarters of the Al Qaeda.
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".
At least three gunmen, all reported to be members of the Taliban, stormed a central Kabul bank on Wednesday morning, and are currently surrounded by police.
US President Barack Obama, who made a surprise visit to Kabul and met President Hamid Karzai, has vowed to deny the Al Qaeda safe haven and reverse Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan.
India named a road in the national capital after the slain Afghan war hero, Ahmad Shah Massoud, the first such honour extended to a leader from that country.
India on Tuesday said the inclusion of Afghanistan in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation would go a long way in establishing lasting peace and stability in the region.
The White House on Tuesday said it does not indulge in cash transactions in Afghanistan and all its assistance to the war-torn country is accountable to the Congress, after Afghan President Hamid Karzai had said that he received "bags of cash" from Iran and the United States.
Karzai warned Pakistan that Afghanistan was no longer weak.
A total of six Indians, including a Border Roads Organisation driver and four ITBP soldiers, and 129 Afghans were killed in these attacks. The 215-km long Delaram-Zaranj highway, a symbol of India's developmental work in the war-ravaged country, was handed over to Afghan authorities by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the presence of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta.
Kenzo Oshima led a 10-member mission to Afghanistan earlier this month.
'Polls have shown that about 70% of Afghans are waiting to see which side to pick - the US/NATO forces or the Taliban.'
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has made a special plea to Pakistan to support the country's reintegration plans. "We ask all neighbours, particularly Pakistan, to support our peace and reconciliation endeavours," Karzai told a London conference on Thursday.
In a video found on Islamist websites late Wednesday, Osama bin Laden's deputy called all Afghans, particularly students in universities and schools in Kabul, to take on the foreign 'infidels' in Afghanistan.
Terming the Kabul embassy bombing an attack on the Indo-Afghan friendship, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday declared that it would not deter New Delhi from continuing its reconstruction of the war-torn country and announced a fresh assistance worth $450 mn for it.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai will undertake a week-long visit to India from April 9 to further consolidate ties between the two countries.
The Centre on Saturday ruled out the possibility of holding talks with the Taliban and said that New Delhi will only be dealing with the legitimate government led by President Hamid Karzai.India believes that Taliban is the 'antagonist and not the protagonist' and is also aware of its collusion with the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba, said sources. The LeT and the Taliban are specifically targeting Indians and Indian interests in the war-torn country, said sources.
'Their offices are in Pakistan. Some of their hideouts are in Pakistan,' says Afghan envoy Masood Khalili.
"I do not think that India has been squeezed out. I think India is playing a stellar role in rebuilding Afghanistan which has been acknowledged by the people of Afghanistan and by the legitimate Government of Afghanistan, and that is what matters," Krishna said in an interview to Karan Thapar for Devil's Advocate.
Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has urged the United States to strike a deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan on the pattern of the Swat pact, saying that the real threat was from the Al Qaeda. "The only way forward is dialogue, which is what (Afghan President) Hamid Karzai is finally saying. You have to start talking to the Taliban," Khan said. He warned that US President Barack Obama's Afghan policy is 'exactly the same way as the mess' made by Bush.
Afghanistan's cash-strapped government relies heavily on financial aid from the United States and elsewhere. Most of the country is impoverished and there is little infrastructure outside of a handful of cities.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is to leave for Afghanistan on a two-day visit.
After a 16-year gap, Indian Airlines will start operating on the Delhi-Kabul sector from March 27 this year giving an impetus to the new momentum in relations between India and Afghanistan.
21 people were hurt when a man with explosives strapped to his body blew himself up outside a mosque in the northern Afghan city of Sheberghan. Dostum, who was inside the mosque at the time, escaped unhurt.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on friday that Taliban leader Mullah Omar is not interested in peace talks or the reconciliation efforts of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "I do not expect Mullah Omar and those people to be at all interested in this. In fact, they've made it very clear that they're not," Clinton told CNN.
The first Indian Prime Minister to visit Afghanistan in 29 years, Singh is to hold talks with President Hamid Karzai on the entire gamut of bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual concern.
Mullah Abdul Fayaz, a supporter of President Hamid Karzai, was shot while driving in the center of Kandahar city.
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