The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has handed over to the Ministry of Public Health a fourth batch of personal protective equipment (PPEs) worth more than $187,000 to help the country combat the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Pakistani foreign minister has said that the new US administration should play an active role in the ongoing Afghan peace process and the opportunity made available for ending the Afghan crisis should not be missed.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu reiterated NATO Support toward Afghan peace process, adding that NATO will address its training mission in Afghanistan in February.

President Ashraf Ghani has called on the Taliban to cut ties with Pakistan. Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Ghani stated that the Taliban should not have a safe haven in Pakistan either.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan’s foreign minister, on Thursday called on Joe Biden, the US president to follow up on the current Afghan peace process and US troops’ withdrawal from the country, reported Al Jazeera.

Pakistan FM tells Al Jazeera the country has hopes for greater engagement with the new Biden administration. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said his country has hopes for greater engagement with the new United States government and called on Joe Biden to follow up on the ongoing Afghan peace process and US troops withdrawal from the country.

Politico says the story is based on conversations with 10 Pentagon and Biden officials involved in the transition. The Pentagon blocked members of President Joe Biden’s incoming administration from gaining access to critical information about current operations, including the troop drawdown in Afghanistan, Politico reported on Wednesday.

The Taliban in a statement on Thursday warned the Afghan government of severe response if any of its members cutting jails are executed. The group said that peace process and execution cant move together. A Taliban spokesman has claimed that all those 5,000 Taliban prisoners who were released recently from the Afghan government jails as part of the US-Taliban peace […]

At least members of the Afghan forces were killed in Taliban attacks in Nimroz and Baghlan province on Thursday evening, sources and officials said. Six police force members were killed in a Taliban attack on their outpost in Khashrod district in the south-western province of Nimroz on Thursday night, the provincial police chief Colonel Abdul Wahab Balakarzai said.

The Afghan security forces have rescued 27 people from a Taliban prison in southern Helmand province, the Defense Ministry (MoD) said Thursday.