According to some media reports, the Modi-Xi informal summit could take place from October 11-13.
Beijing's growing assertiveness as kingmaker in Kabul has suffered a setback with Washington quietly moving in, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Quoting diplomatic sources, The Express Tribune reported that India and Pakistan were exploring the possibility of a meeting between Swaraj and Aziz and also between the foreign secretaries of the two countries in the Nepalese tourist city of Pokhara.
She also said the Kartarpur corridor initiative was not linked to the dialogue process with Pakistan.
'Washington appears to be playing the long game, and making the argument to India that over the longer term, Russia -- sanctioned, cash-strapped, isolated by the West -- will no longer be a viable defence partner for India'
While addressing media in Rawalpindi, Rashid claimed that 'decisive time for Kashmir's struggle' has come.
'From what evidence has come up, General Bajwa somehow managed to tell the Americans that I was anti-American.' 'And so, it [the plan to oust me] wasn't imported from there. It was exported from here to there.'
New Delhi has reached out to neighbours like seldom before while singling Islamabad for criticism at international forums.
Musharraf attended the SAARC summit in 2002 at Kathmandu where he grabbed headlines with his famous handshake with the then Indian Prime Minister A B Vajpayee in a bid to reduce the mounting military tensions.
Nepal said it 'has received communications' from four member-states -- Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and India -- in which they conveyed their inability to participate in the 19th SAARC summit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Ufa on Friday after more than a year.
After two decades, the SCO appears to be at a cross-roads with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, asserts Srikanth Kondapalli, the leading China expert.
On his maiden visit to Beijing, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping during which the two leaders agreed to strengthen the all-weather friendship and the USD 60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Khan said Pakistan was open for "any kind of mediation" and seeks peace with all its neighbours, especially with India.
The terrible beauty of Doval's initiative is that it is all about a new journey rather than about a set compass pointing toward a pre-determined destination, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Pakistan's top diplomat Sartaj Aziz said that he did not reject the idea when asked about the chances of a meeting between the two prime ministers
The Pakistani delegation raised the heavy presence of security forces in the Valley at the 64th meeting of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Kampala, which the Indian side countered.
Bangladesh on Thursday said Premier Sheikh Hasina cancelled her planned visit to Pakistan next week because of "schedule conflict" as she would join the country's Armed Forces Day celebrations.
Hurried and ill-planned Summits like the Vajpayee-Musharraf Summit in Agra which preceded the attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001 are best avoided for now, says G Parthasarathy
'The MEA, hopefully, made it clear that the Indian PM can't be seen in Xi Jinping's company when China has, for all intents and purposes, annexed over 1,000 sq kms of Indian territory in eastern Ladakh, and essentially that the Wuhan spirit and the Mamallapuram spirit have turned into vinegar.'
Iran has offered to provide Pakistan $500 million to build its section of a bilateral gas pipeline project on the condition that Islamabad will not turn its back on the venture, a media report said.
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.
In an apparent snub to Pakistan, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has scrapped her planned visit to Islamabad to attend an international summit later this month, without citing any specific reason.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai made a torrid attack on the Pakistani leadership in a face-to-face meeting with Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and demanded that Islamabad produce top Taliban leaders to negotiate with him. Karzai confronted the Pakistanis at an official delegation-level talk on Thursday in Islamabad between the two countries on the sidelines of a trilateral summit meeting of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
Pakistan-based terror groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed were named on Monday in the Summit declaration of the BRICS countries.
Xi will attend the second informal meeting with Modi at Mahabalipuram near Chennai from October 11 to 12 and pay a state visit to Nepal on October 13, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying announced on Wednesday.
The Pakistani team investigating the Pathankot terror attack will complete its probe this week, a top official said on Monday, days after three suspects in the high-profile case were remanded to police custody.
'From the very start, PM Modi was insistent that visiting foreign leaders should be exposed to an India beyond its capital.' 'Through these experiences, he felt that the full Indian narrative would be much better understood across the world,' explains External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. A riveting excerpt from Bluekraft Digital Foundation's Modi@20: Dreams Meet Delivery.
United States officials have identified Pakistan as a base of operations or target for numerous armed and non state militant groups, some of which have existed since the 1980s, the independent Congressional Research Service said in the report.
In an interview to Dainik Jagran the prime minister said a 'good beginning' could be made to improve ties from next month's SAARC summit in Islamabad.
According to Dawn, Modi in his message reiterated India's desire to build good neighbourly relations with Pakistan.
Modi said the coming together of SAARC leaders will lead to effective outcomes and benefit citizens in the fight against coronavirus. The PM on Friday had proposed formulation of a joint strategy by the SAARC nations to fight coronavirus, a suggestion that was backed by all the member states.
The SAARC has not lived up to its potential, the White House said.
'New Delhi showed itself willing -- at least for a period -- to tolerate the risk of conflict and to withstand Beijing's implicit and explicit threats.' 'But it also continued to try to cut some kind of deal with China to reduce tensions.'
The arrest of Madhuri Gupta, a diplomat working in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, on charges of spying will have an impact on the mood of the ongoing South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Thimphu because the matter is related to India's national security. Gupta, 53, a promotee officer of the ministry of external affairs, was arrested in New Delhi four days ago. Prasad refused to elaborate further on the issue. Gupta used to work as a translator.
'China physically occupies about 45,000 sq km of J&K as claimed by India, including 3,000 sq km captured in the 1962 War and never returned; and 5,180 sq km ceded to China by Pakistan in 1963.' 'It is hard to justify remaining silent about the return of China occupied Ladakh,' observes Ajay Shukla.
Addressing the 76th UNGA session in New York, Modi called for ensuring that no country 'tries to take advantage of the delicate situation in Afghanistan and use it for its own selfish interests'.
According to Bambawale, even while tensions were high between the two nations, there had been contacts at the operational level.
