The United States' mounting pressure on Pakistan -- to go after the Afghan Taliban inside Balochistan -- could affect the cohesion of the Pakistan army and lead to the destabilisation of the government, according to US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke.Earlier, Holbrooke said, "We will not be able to succeed in Afghanistan unless our Pakistan policy is equally successful".
At a recent Track II conference of Indians and Pakistanis, predictions about the fate of Richard Holbrooke, the key interlocutor for US policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Af-Pak, because nothing can be solved in Afghanistan without addressing Pakistan) were dire. He's losing his job and going home -- after all, he's achieved very little, and he's abrasive and rude.
Worried at the emerging reports from Pakistan, the United States has announced that it would provide immediate assistance to $8 million for "unexpected and urgent refugee and migration needs" in Pakistan, including through international non-governmental organizations.
Any hasty withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan could have catastrophic consequences and the active cooperation of Pakistan is a must for comprehensively defeating the Al Qaeda and The Taliban, America's point man for the region Richard Holbrooke has said.He stated that achieving success in the war torn country would involve continued American economic and development assistance.On Pakistan's role, he said, "We cannot succeed in Afghanistan without Pakistan."
Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke will be travelling to Europe to consult leaders in Germany, France and Russia, before proceeding to Kabul to attend the inauguration of Hamid Karzai for his second term as Afghanistan's president.
On the eve of US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke's visit to the South Asia, The Guardian newspaper has said Pakistan is the greatest foreign policy challenge for the Barack Obama administration.
India should review its Kashmir policy for itself, not for others, C Christine Fair, senior political scientist, RAND Corporation, tells KS Manjunath.
Amid concerns by certain quarters in Pakistan over the 'strings' attached to the United States aid, Washington on Friday asserted that no condition has been imposed on Pakistan for the $ 680 Defense Authorisation Bill and charged that an attempt is on to 'willfully distort' the facts.
Al Qaeda is trying to seek nuclear secrets from Pakistan and it remains as dangerous as ever, Special United States Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke said on Wednesday. "Al Qaeda is still there in the region, ever dangerous and publicly asking people to attack the US and publicly asking nuclear engineers to give them nuclear secrets from Pakistan," Holbrooke said during a reception hosted by the Congressional Caucus.
Frank Ruggiero, a career civil servant who served under late United States diplomat Richard Holbrooke, has been made the acting US special representative to the Af-Pak region and will be assisted by two deputies, one of them an Indian-American named Vikram Singh.
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari has rejected United States' strategy of linking policy on Pakistan and Afghanistan in a bid to end the Taliban insurgency and bring stability to the region.
The Mumbai terror attacks, which were carried out by the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba terror outfit, closed the door for any Indo-Pak discussions on Kashmir, according to a top American diplomat.
In his meeting with Richard Holbrooke on February 16, 2009 in New Delhi, the then Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon also thanked the Special Representative for US' role in pressing Pakistan to act on India's dossier on Mumbai attacks and said that it was "remarkable that we got this far".
American military commanders operating with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation led mission in Afghanistan have informed US President Barack Obama's special envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, that they do not have enough troops to do their job, and are being pushed past their limit by Taliban rebels who operate across borders.
The Pakistan government is reported to have raised the issue of its agrarian lands drying up due to India's water conspiracy with visiting United States Special Representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke.
'We are very grateful that the US takes the trouble to keep us informed and to consult with us as this situation is being managed by them,' Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor tells rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa.
Pakistan has once again requested the United States to provide it with drone technology, so that it can carry out operations against the Taliban and other extremist groups in the lawless tribal region along the Afghan border.
Ahead of the key strategic dialogue with Pakistan, the Obama administration on Wednesday shot down Islamabad's plea to help it resume peace talks with India and mediate on key disputes with New Delhi on issues including Kashmir.
Richard Holbrooke, the United States Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has asserted that the Obama administration "believes that what happens in Afghanistan and Pakistan is of vital interest to our national security and that India is a country that we must keep in the closest consultations with."
The United States has once again rejected the notion regarding it playing a role of an 'intermediary' between India and Pakistan to help both nuclear powered countries to resolve long pending issues between them.
The Obama administration is "disturbed" by the release of Jamaat-ud-Daawa chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who was placed under house arrest nearly six months ago in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, US Special Representative Richard Holbrooke said on Wednesday.
Al Qaeda has started feeling the heat as a result of the intensification of American efforts against it in the Af-Pak region, a top Obama Administration official has said.
Suspicious of deepening ties between India and the United States, Pakistan is reluctant to plunge into war with Afghan militants and even high-profile visits of US officials have failed to win over a military and civilian establishment in Islamabad, a media report said.
The Barack Obama administration's top diplomat for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, has admitted that the United States is getting battered by the Taliban in the information war in the Federally Administered Tribal Area and the Northwest Frontier Province in Pakistan. He warned that the 'success' in the US-led assault on these militant groups would ring hollow if there is no propaganda victory against these extremists."We are losing that war," he said.
The strict measures put in place by American authorities to screen air travellers from Pakistan have emerged as a major irritant in relations between the two countries, with President Asif Ali Zardari, on Friday, asking the US to review its new security policy.
United States President Barack Obama's Special Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, who is currently on a three-day visit to Pakistan, is expected to make a short visit to New Delhi on Friday.
"Tragically," he bemoaned, "neither President Zardari nor former Prime Minister Sharif appear to recognise the scope and seriousness of the crisis that their country is in or of the necessity of setting their personal or party political fortunes aside in order to meet the danger."
"Read my lips," said Richard Holbrooke, special US representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, "I am not working on that problem," when asked by a Pakistani journalist if the Obama administration was 'serious to appoint any adviser to resolve this issue,' since as the latter contended, "We all know that deep down, there is no solution of Afghanistan and the South Asia problem, without resolving the Kashmir issue that is controlled by Indian government."
The independent task force set up last year included Richard Holbrooke, the Special US Representatives for Pakistan and Afghanistan, and General James Jones, National Security Advisor. But both of them stepped down from the task force before the first draft was written, and as such they are not associated with the report, it says.
The United States on Thursday said that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba was as dangerous as Taliban and Al-Qaeda with which it was working in close coordination and that Pakistan has been asked to deny it a foothold in that country.
United States has stepped up diplomatic efforts to defuse the deepening political crisis in Pakistan, with Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke asking the country's top leadership to resolve differences with the PML-N so that they could focus on the war against militancy.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has met top US officials to discuss the Barack Obama Administration's review of the Afghan policy.
Iran and Pakistan recently signed an export deal that commits Tehran to selling natural gas to Islamabad from 2014.
The Taliban forces operating out of Pakistan's Swat region pose a common threat to India and the United States, besides the host country, America's special envoy Richard Holbrooke suggested in New Delhi on Monday. The envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who met External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon, said he had sought the Indian leadership's assessment of the situation.
Terming United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's forthcoming visit to Pakistan as a 'people-to-people trip', Obama administration's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke has said that Clinton's trip to the troubled nation would be one the most important foreign visits of the top American diplomat.
Expressing concern over the release of A Q Khan from house arrest, the United States told Pakistan that the disgraced nuclear scientist continues to be a "serious threat" to proliferation of nuclear weapons technology. US Special Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke, who is currently on a visit to Islamabad, certainly raised the issue pertaining to A Q Khan, State Department spokesperson Robert Wood said on Wednesday.
United States President Barack Obama has appointed Bruce Riedel, a veteran Central Investigative Agency analyst for nearly three decades, to chair an inter-agency policy review of US policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan.Obama's press spokesman Robert Gibbs said that this policy review chaired by Riedel would have to be completed before the summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in April.
Seeking a resolution of the Kashmir issue for lasting peace, Pakistan Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani on Thursday said Pakistani people were disappointed that the United States Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke's mandate did not include India and hoped that the Obama administration would review the matter.
America's special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, will travel to the two countries and to India later this week as part of an orientation trip.
'Much as the Palestinian issue remains the core obstacle to peace in the Middle East, the question of Kashmir must be addressed in some meaningful way to bring stability to this region,' he said. He hoped the Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan will work towards a 'just and reasonable' solution to the issue.
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