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.
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.
Giving incremental fillip to their cooperation in strategic areas including trade and security, India and Afghanistan on Tuesday inked a partnership pact amid assertions that the agreement was not "directed against any other State or group of States".
A confrontation with the Taliban in Kabul in this fading light of a twilight zone would have been sheer madness, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday described as "worrisome" reports that Indian Consulate General in Jalalabad was the target of a terror plot in Afghanistan.
Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence is providing safe haven to the Taliban leadership and the West need not mount a military operation to capture Mullah Omar as the elusive insurgent chief "is with them," according to Afghanistan's former spy chief.
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.
The two-day visit to New Delhi of Professor Burhanudin Rabbani, chairman of the high peace council of Afghanistan, from July 14 will be an occasion for Indian leaders to have detailed discussions on the reconciliation process initiated in Afghanistan with the Taliban groups.
Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, a former high-ranking member of the Taliban regime has refuted reports that he is involved in any sort of negotiations between the Britain and reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Earlier, a section of the British media had reported that Mullah Zaeef's recent visit to London was aimed at facilitate British-sponsored talks between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and senior members of the Taliban.
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
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.
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.
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.
'It was always anticipated that the return of the Taliban would embolden armed Islamists including anti-India groups like the Lashkar and Jaish.'
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.
Pakistan on Friday announced it will release former Afghan Taliban deputy chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar on Saturday, meeting a long-standing demand of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to advance peace efforts in the war-ravaged country.
Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh on Saturday met Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the two presidential candidates here during which she was assured that Afghanistan was committed to ensuring full safety for the Indian Embassy in Kabul, four consulates and interests irrespective of the orientation of the new leadership.
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.
The United Nations Security Council has dropped five prominent Taliban members from its sanctions blacklist under an ambitious national reconciliation plan of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai.
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."
Dr Singh and Gandhi, along with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, had the discussion with Advani on the issue during the State dinner hosted for visiting Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai in New Delhi on Monday.
The key is to act and not wait and watch before the limited window of opportunity shuts, argues Shanthie Mariet D'Souza.
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.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday condemned what he described as India's 'brutal' handling of protests in Jammu and Kashmir.
Mulla Dadullah Akhund, Taliban military commander spoke to a Pakistani newspaper.
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
The United States has announced the end of its 20-year-old war in Afghanistan as the last American military flight flew out of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul shortly before the August 31 deadline.
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.
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".
US-Pakistan relations are poised to touch a qualitatively new level under the Biden administration, notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
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
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 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".
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.
Musharraf meets US commander over Afghan allegations
'I actually believe it's not all that appropriate that there be an Indian Consul on the border with Pakistan,' says Afghan expert Sarah Chayes.
