King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia (C) meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt (R) aboard the USS Quincy in Great Bitter Lake, Egypt, February 14, 1945. The Joe Biden Administration is expected to release the Central Intelligence Agency report on the brutal murder of the prominent dissident and well-known journalist Jamal Khashoggi in …
India has lessons from Sino-Russian normalisation
China backs India for hosting BRICS 2021 summit At a press conference in Beijing on Monday, when asked about China’s attitude toward BRICS cooperation and India’s current chairmanship of the grouping in the backdrop of the border tensions in Ladakh, the Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin described BRICs as a cooperation mechanism with “practical …
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US, Iran edging back to negotiating table
New generation of centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment plant The frozen lake of US-Iran confrontation is generating a pinging sound. The cracking of the ice is yet to produce that loud booming thunderclap. But these are early days. It was only last Thursday that the US and the three European states who are party …
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The zen of Ladakh disengagement
A meeting between special representatives of India and China on boundary question – Ajit Doval (L) and Wang Yi (R) – is on the cards The 9th round of talks at the army commanders’ level between India and China resulted in a breakthrough that since achieved the successful disengagement of troops on the north and …
India’s forever wars and forever warriors
Disengagement between Chinese and Indian forces at the banks of the Pangong lake in Eastern Ladakh The Washington-based Quincy Institute, arguably the most intellectually stimulating American think tank nowadays, in its compulsively readable publication Responsible Statecraft featured on Tuesday an investigative report titled Weapons biz bankrolls experts pushing to extend Afghan War, authored by Eli Clifton, …
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Biden resumes adult conversations with Beijing, Moscow
US envoy to Iran Robert Malley (third from left) at a 2015 meeting with Iranian officials, including Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (far R), Geneva Like a bolt from the blue, the news has appeared belatedly that the US special envoy to Iran Rob Malley initiated a call with Chinese vice minister Ma Zhaoxu on February …
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Qatar on mission to break US-Iran stalemate
Iran foreign minister Javad Zarif (L) and Qatari counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani (R), Tehran. Feb. 15, 2021 With five days to go, Iran nuclear issue is tiptoeing toward a deadline on February 21 when Tehran is obliged by its domestic law to stop allowing inspections of the International Atomic Energy Agency unless there …
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US-Indian strategic construct of Western Indian Ocean runs into headwinds
Pakistan Navy is hosting largest multinational maritime exercise ‘Aman 21’ in North Arabian Sea on February 11-16, 2021. The AMAN-21 naval exercise, the biennial event hosted by Pakistani Navy since 2007, in Karachi and the Arabian Sea from February 11-16 draws special attention. As many as 45 navies are reportedly participating, which makes AMAN probably …
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Biden kickstarts China re-engagement
What distinguishes the new US administration is that there has never been an American president before with anywhere near the foreign policy experience that Joe Biden possesses. Biden brings into the presidency enormous experience spanning over half a century, through his continuous stretch in the US Senate and the White House from 1973 to 2016 …
US reboots Quad in unseemly hurry
Protests in Myanmar’s central plains after the military coup. The Japanese news agency Kyodo reported from Washington Sunday quoting “a source” that the Biden Administration had proposed to New Delhi, Tokyo and Canberra the idea of holding an online summit meeting of the leaders of the “Quad”. The report added, “Whether the talks will materialise …