WASHINGTON: Pakistan is exploring the possibility of creating a greater South Asian economic alliance to counter India’s controlling hold on the eight-member South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc), diplomatic observers say. A parliamentary delegation from Pakistan, which is now in New York, pitched this idea during its five-day visit to Washington last week. “A greater South Asia is already emerging,” said Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, in one of his interactions with the media. “This…
Posts published in “Day: October 12, 2016”
Parliament, at the end of its joint sitting on Kashmir, has adopted a detailed resolution on Kashmir. The essential outline of the resolution followed the guidelines laid out at the All Parties Conference held earlier in the week, with a focus on a strongly-worded condemnation of human rights excesses against the unarmed people of Kashmir and a call to the international community to step in before there is further bloodshed. The resolution also called for…
When viewed from the International Space Station (ISS) there are no artificially defined national borders that are visible at night — except that between India and Pakistan. A bright orange line snakes across an image released by NASA a little over a year ago, in September 2015. It reaches from the Indian Ocean in the south to the Himalayan foothills in the north and will have cost countless billions to build — to say nothing…
Despite the fact that my book launches of Neither a Hawk, Nor a Dove in Karachi and New Delhi were attended, inter alia, by the principal actors themselves, namely President Pervez Musharraf and Dr Manmohan Singh (also Mr L K Advani) and the passage of many months since my book was launched, nobody is in a position to know has contradicted any of the contents of the book regarding the peace process or the details…
THIS much appears to be a consensus among the country’s political leadership: serious and peace-minded diplomacy needs to be put front and centre of the country’s foreign policy. Be it a Senate resolution passed on Friday, another passed by a joint sitting of parliament or the comments of the special Kashmir envoys sent to foreign capitals by the PML-N government, there is a sense that unless urgent corrective steps are taken, Pakistan may slip towards…
Pakistan says that the Kashmir issue should be resolved according to UN resolutions. The resolutions give the Kashmiris the right to self-determination. It is for the Kashmiris to decide if they want to be part of Pakistan or form an independent state. On the other hand, India claims Kashmir to be its integral part. Both the countries are signatories of the UN resolutions on Kashmir. Therefore when Pakistan raises the voice that Kashmir banaiga Pakistan,…
Although the valley had never fully recovered from its insurgency movement of the 1990s, chaos in the last few months has significantly exacerbated the already precarious peace situation in Kashmir. Non-stop curfew and state-sponsored sanctions against press on top of continual rounds of violence pitting stone-pelting protestors against armed Indian security forces have set forth an increasingly paralysed life in Kashmir. In the wake of the recent death of a 12-year old boy after he…
KHAR: Two Bajaur Levies men were injured when a bomb planted along a road went off in Mamond tehsil here on Monday, political administration officials and local people said. They said the personnel were on a routine search on a link road in the hilly area of Niaag, some 12kms from Khar, when an explosive device went off near them. According to the local administration officials, the bomb was detonated by a remote control. The…
LANDI KOTAL: Pakistan Air Force fighter planes pounded hideouts of militant groups in the border areas of the Tirah valley on Monday, killing at least seven militants, according to officials. They said three hideouts of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and the Lashkar-i-Islam were destroyed in the strikes conducted in the hilly areas of Kandaw Gharibi and Kheraba. The air sorties were carried out after interception of wireless conversation between suspected militants about possible acts of…
KABUL — When Taliban fighters penetrated the capital of Helmand province for the first time Monday, killing at least 14 people in a suicide bombing and related attacks, it was their most successful assault to date on the strategic southern city and opium trade center, which the insurgents have been trying to capture for months. Government forces pushed them out after several hours, and officials declared the situation under control, but by then some panicked…
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has publicly backed Russia’s positions on “the most important” global issues, including Moscow’s take on the Syrian and Afghan conflicts, Russia Today reported. The Ministry also stressed that the two keep close contact as fellow UN Security Council permanent members. Speaking at a briefing on Sunday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong said that Russia and China had been working closely together in the United Nations Security Council, sharing similar views…