Further progress
Last week I had identified some steps that Pakistan had taken to promote reconciliation in Afghanistan. I had suggested that there were further measures that Pakistan should also take, urgently, since…
Afghan choices
The endgame for the current Afghanistan crisis is supposedly approaching or is already underway. Some Taliban leaders have already been flown by NATO to Kabul for talks. Holbrooke has cautioned,…
Ethnic tensions threaten stability of north Afghan town
In the north of war-torn Afghanistan, the rule of the Kabul government holds little sway. But the city of Mazar-e- Sharif is still safer than most of the country. Residents…
How a new chapter opened
The misunderstandings between Pakistan and Afghanistan should not be attributed to the wrong policies of Kabul alone. The monumental mistakes of our own policymakers in tackling the situation in Afghanistan…
‘Liberty once lost’
What US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has told President Hamid Karzai in Kabul – “Please know that the United States will be your friend and ally” – has a…
Behind the Afghan imbroglio
Moscow offered to train a few officers of an Afghan law-enforcement agency. Kabul was ready to accept the offer, but the US killed the proposal. After the rebuff, the Russian…
Assassination of Rabbani
During my meeting with Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani in Kabul last month I could never have imagined that this would be our last meeting. Just a few months ago he and…
Our leadership’s US problem
The pressure that has been building up is reaching its climax. Admiral Mike Mullen has directly implicated the ISI in the recent attack on the US embassy in Kabul. The…
Will the Taliban opt for peace?
For the past 35 years Pakistan protected, housed and fed Afghans fleeing wars, occupation and civil strife. Unlike the Iranians, who confined them to camps and strictly policed their movement,…
Karzai’s defiant tone
The visit to Kabul by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen along with the 35 ambassadors who participate in the NATO council in Brussels was, from Afghanistan’s perspective, particularly welcomes.…
