On 19 September 2018, after signing the Pyongyang Declaration with then South Korean president Moon Jae-in, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared his desire for the Korean Peninsula to be free from nuclear weapons. In his speech at the Rungrado 1st of May Stadium in Pyongyang that evening, Moon reaffirmed this. North Korea followed its leader’s pledges by closing some nuclear test sites and […]

Concerns have been looming large on the sanctions on Russian oil, which is heading for another major oil shock in the world. Russia is the second biggest exporter of oil in the world, and the EU is the biggest importer of oil from Russia. The EU has prohibited maritime exports of Russian oil and levied price cap of US $60 per barrel in December 2022. These followed suit […]

Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to Saudi Arabia on 7 December 2022 has marked a turning point in Beijing’s foreign policy towards the Persian Gulf states. This three-day trip included three summits: One with President Xi and the Saudi Crown Prince on behalf of King Salman; a second between China and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states; and a third among China […]

Islamist militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban on Wednesday claimed the killing of a senior official of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency and another officer, the latest in a resurgence of jihadist violence shaking the country. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officers were shot dead outside a hotel in Punjab province on Tuesday, police said. The TTP, an umbrella group of militants that associates itself […]

Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban killed eight Islamic State militants and arrested nine others in a series of raids targeting key figures in a spate of attacks in Kabul, a senior Taliban government spokesman said Thursday. Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Taliban government, said the raids in the capital city and western Nimroz province on Wednesday targeted IS militants who organized recent […]

Afghanistan’s Taliban-led administration is to sign a contract with a Chinese company to extract oil from the Amu Darya basin in the country’s north, the acting mining minister said on Thursday. The contract would be signed with Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Co (CAPEIC), officials told a news conference in Kabul. It will be the first major public commodities […]

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, the Movement of Pakistani Taliban) has released numbers of its attacks against Pakistanis security forces in various regions of Pakistan, especially in the lawless tribal regions along the Pakistan-Afghan border, in November 2022, and of the resulting casualties among Pakistan’s security forces. According to an Urdu-language report posted on December 1, 2022, on the TTP’s official […]

A gunman shot and killed two intelligence officers in an attack outside a roadside restaurant in eastern Pakistan on Tuesday before fleeing, police and security officials said. Murtaza Bhatti, a senior police officer in the Punjab province district of Khanewal, said the attack happened when the two officers were parking their vehicle, local media reported. According to the reports no […]

The United States said on Tuesday Washington is discussing “very specific consequences” of the recent decisions of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) both internally and with its allies and partners. This comes in response to the IEA’s recent moves to stop women from attending university and barring them from working for non-governmental organizations (NGOs). “We have said repeatedly that […]

Former Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai on Tuesday called on Islamabad to stop issuing threats and to carry out a “deep review” of its policies related to Afghanistan, saying that prevailing “insecurity” in Pakistan is the result of its own policies. Karzai had been responding to a statement issued after Pakistan’s National Security Committee (NSC) meeting early this week which stated […]