Saudis and Emiratis visit Pakistan to atone for sins

UAE Foreign minister  Sheikh bin Zayed Al-Nahyan (L) and Saudi Minister of State Adel Ahmed Al-Jubeir (R) met Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi (C), Islamabad, Sept 4, 2019 The unscheduled joint visit by the foreign minister of the UAE and the junior foreign minister of Saudi Arabia — Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and …

With eye on Trump, India scrambles for Russian support

Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) at informal meeting in Sochi in May 2018  Within a week of National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s consultations in Moscow on August 21, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar is travelling to the Russian capital for talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday.  Prima …

Vajpayee’s Kashmir necklace becomes Modi’s Albatross

Meeting room of the United Nations Security Council. Pakistan has called for an emergency meeting of the UNSC to discuss Kashmir The Russian news agency Tass reported that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had a telephonic conversation with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Wednesday to convey that Islamabad should defuse its tensions with New Delhi …

India shouldn’t undermine Afghan peace talks

(Handout picture of US officials at peace talks with Taliban, Doha, Qatar)  The Press Trust of India has reported on the discussions regarding Afghanistan in Washington last week between the visiting Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale and the US special representative Zalmay Khalilzad. The report carries New Delhi dateline and is attributed to ‘official sources’.  According …

US, China and root cause of terrorism in South Asia

(Samjhauta Express carrying some 150 passengers left Lahore railway station for New Delhi on March 4, 2019) There were three key elements in the remarks at the press briefing in Washington on Tuesday by Robert Palladino, deputy spokesperson of the US State Department, regarding India-Pakistan tensions, while flagging that “there’s a lot of private diplomacy …