LAHORE: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) may approach the interior ministry to get a red warrant issued through Interpol for Kamran Kayani after his family refused to accept summons issued for him by the bureau in the Rs16 billion DHA City scam. “We served the summons at the residence of Kamran Kayani but his family refused to accept it,” a source in the bureau told Dawn on Monday, adding that they would send a reminder…
Posts published in “Day: January 19, 2016”
The writer is an associate research fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. Amid growing Taliban attacks in Afghanistan, efforts to revive the peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban factions have been launched under the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG). Talks between the two sides collapsed in July last year after confirmation of Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s death. Now US and…
KANDAHAR: The Taliban are reported to have demanded a hefty new “protection tax” from Afghan mobile phone companies, as the resurgent group tightens its stranglehold on a rare successful business in a slumping war economy. According to industry and militant sources, the Taliban’s central leaders demanded the money at a secret meeting last month near Quetta from representatives of four cellular companies in exchange for not damaging their sites or harming their employees. The move…
Kabul: U.S., Afghan, Pakistani and Chinese officials met here Monday for a second round of talks aimed at clearing the way for negotiations between the Afghan government and Taliban. The involvement of the U.S., which backs the Afghan government, and China, a close ally of Pakistan, is seen as necessary to build trust between the two neighbors before peace talks can begin. “With the support of the United States and China, two vital members of…
The writer is a barrister and columnist. At last, at last, the Republic steps up. Or, at least, that’s what we hear from Pakistan’s media mills — the white and green is tiptoeing out onto the world stage again, with olive branches for everyone. May we hear that most meaningless phrase again: ‘a just and lasting peace in the Middle East?’ We may not get the chance: the House of Saud has worked itself into…
The Iran-Saudi mediation mission: By Rustam Shah Mohmand in The Express Tribune, January 19th, 2016.
The writer has served as ambassador to Afghanistan and is a former interior secretary The news that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would be visiting both Riyadh and Tehran to discuss and explore the possibility of a reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia has received overwhelming public approval across the political divide. Nothing could be more comforting and soothing to millions of Muslims around the globe than to hear about efforts for a rapprochement between the…
The writer is an analyst and commentator. Two weeks ago, when Saudi Arabia cut off diplomatic relations with Iran, I used this space to appeal for Pakistan to play a proactive leadership role in helping these two important countries resolve their differences. It isn’t every day that one gets to find stories in the newspaper that conform exactly to what one imagines to be an ideal public policy response to an international crisis. On January…
The writer is a retired ambassador and the president of the Lahore Council for World Affairs. There is no doubt that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has the tendency to undertake too many foreign visits, spending abroad the time which would be more profitably spent at home attending to the pressing political, economic and social problems afflicting the country. But this remark certainly does not apply to the mediation mission that he has undertaken to visit…
The writer is an educationist and a senior analyst based in Lahore. Even when the power shifted from the British to the United States (US), the pattern of paradoxical approach designed by Sir Winston Churchill remained the cornerstone of Western policies towards the Muslim countries of the Middle East. The two aspects of the paradox were: attraction for oil so as to give boost to industry and trade and the urge to keep these Middle…
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff Gen Raheel Sharif landed in Riyadh on Monday to act as a mediator between Saudi Arabia and Iran amid growing tensions of a prolonged confrontation between the two long-standing rivals. The premier and army chief will later visit Tehran to try to persuade the two countries to resolve their disputes diplomatically. The motives of the trip remain unclear despite what appears to be in plain sight.…
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday urged Saudi Arabia and Iran to open their channels of communication to defuse tensions, as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif kicked off diplomatic efforts to mediate between the two key Muslim countries. In the first leg of their crucial trip to Saudi Arabia and Iran, Premier Nawaz and Gen Raheel held talks in Riyadh with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz to discuss options and…