Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Monday Islamabad would continue fencing the border with Afghanistan while hoping that contentious issues would be resolved with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) authorities through diplomatic channels. Addressing a press conference on Monday, Qureshi said: “We have erected the fence and we will continue to fence the border.” Dawn News reported […]

Officials of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) said that they will create a special battalion of Istishhad (martyrdom soldiers) to be part of their future army. During an interview with Radio RFE/RL the deputy minister of information and culture and spokesperson of the IEA Zabiullah Mujahid said that the battalion will be part of their special forces and will […]

While addressing a consultative conference on terrorism in Islamabad last month, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting [I&B] Fawad Chaudhary said, “We don’t have any potential threat from India… We face no danger from America… We face no danger from Europe. The biggest danger we face is [extremism] from within.” For a country that has consistently remained in a […]

On December 19, Pakistan enthusiastically hosted the historic 17th Extraordinary Session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers in Islamabad. The session was attended by nearly all member states which discussed humanitarian, financial, and health-related problems concerning the people of Afghanistan and also took some appropriate decisions. The session was inevitable given the deteriorating situation in […]

‘Kabuliwala’ for most in India, has been a point of reference for conversations about Afghans, their characteristics and their historical ties with India. ‘Kabuliwala’ is a story about a Pathan fruit seller from Kabul, who visits Calcutta each year to sell dry fruits. There he ends up befriending a little, Bengali girl called Mini who reminds him of the daughter […]

The 2018–2021 period can be seen as an important turning point in Korean history. In the space of a few years, the US–China confrontation has changed everything in Northeast Asia — and this change is likely to last for a long time. The ‘new Cold War’, as this confrontation is sometimes known, has not altered China’s strategic goals in Northeast […]

Javed Ahmad Ghamidi is a rare clerical voice in Pakistan. A prominent religious scholar and former member of the state-appointed Council of Islamic Ideology that ensures that legislation conforms with Islamic law, Mr. Ghamidi calls a spade a spade in a country in which that can have dire consequences. To be sure, Mr. Ghamidi can do so because he is […]

China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are all near neighbours in the region. All four can share common regional ties both in terms of their geographical proximity, development journey and through more recent ties through membership of the regional trade bloc. Sri Lanka differs in that it is an island economy and has been utilizing this in terms of developing […]

The nuclear capability of Pakistan is purely security based and depends upon the changing technological developments in the region. Pakistan maintains a posture of credible minimum deterrence and ensures strategic stability in the region. However, India continually pushes Pakistan towards arms race, by the development and induction of new aggressive technology, and incorporation of offensive doctrines. The proliferation of supersonic […]

Geographically, the neighbourhood is typically a country’s first point of diplomacy. India’s relationship with its neighbouring countries (NCs)—Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka—has similarly been key to its foreign policy. This is certainly true of the past decade (2010-2020), especially since 2014, when the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government first enunciated its ‘Neighbourhood First’ Policy (NFP), […]