National Directorate of Security (NDS) Chief Ahmad Zia Saraj said Tuesday that the Afghan government is ready to exchange Pakistani prisoner Abdullah Orakzai, leader of the Khorasan branch of the Islamic State (IS-K), locally known as Daesh, for two Taliban leaders in Pakistan’s custody. The NDS forces arrested Abdullah Orakzai aka Aslam Farooqi, the IS-K leader, along with 19 of […]

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has called on warring parties in Afghanistan to remain engaged in the Afghan peace process. In an interview with the Turkish News Agency Anadolu, Qureshi stated that Pakistan will urge the Taliban to remain engaged and continue with the peace process. “We will certainly try and urge them, you know we will urge them […]

Officials in Pakistan appear upset over U.S. military assessments warning of a possible resurgence of terrorism in the South Asian country after the withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan and calling into question Islamabad’s commitment to peace in the war-torn neighboring country. Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia, shared the […]

Pakistan on Monday urged the Taliban to remain engaged in the Afghan peace process after the armed group said it would now shun summits about Afghanistan until all foreign forces had left. The decision was taken after the United States said last week it would withdraw all troops by Sept. 11 this year, later than a May 1 deadline set […]

Lawmakers in Afghanistan’s parliament on Saturday summoned heads of security agencies to respond to them about the diversion of a plane carrying Pakistan’s parliament speaker Asad Qaiser’s who was supposed to land at Hamid Karzai International Airport as part of his planned three-day visit to Kabul on Thursday. Qaiser’s planned three-day visit to Kabul was called off following reports that […]

Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is due in Islamabad on Tuesday on a two-day official visit for talks on bilateral and regional matters, with special focus on Afghanistan. According to Pakistan’s Daily Times, Lavrov will lead a 13-member delegation that also includes Russian special envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova and several other senior officials. This […]

Sources reveal secret negotiations between Pakistan’s government and the TTP, which ultimately fell apart. During 2020, the Pakistani government and the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has, since its inception in December 2007, been openly fighting the Pakistani government, conducted secret peace negotiations, militant sources exclusively confirmed to The Diplomat. While these negotiations went into much detail, the talks eventually […]

The Afghan National Security Directorate of Afghanistan (NDS) said Tuesday that the Taliban has no authority in making a decision in the Afghan peace process as the group is “taking orders from Pakistan.” The national spy agency claimed that Pakistan has called Taliban commanders to Peshawar and Quetta in preparation for the Taliban’s spring offensive. Briefing Afghan Senate members in […]

In late February, India and Pakistan announced a cease-fire along their de facto border in the contested region of Kashmir. In a joint statement, the two countries’ military authorities said that there will be a “strict observance of all agreements, understandings and cease firing,” while also claiming they will seek to “address each other’s core issues and concerns” to ensure […]

Pakistan government said on Sunday that a foreign troop withdrawal from Afghanistan should be done in a responsible way in order to avoid a “vacuum”. Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Pakistan believes “that the withdrawal of troops should be orderly and responsible so as not to create a vacuum”.