Acting Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi arrives at Islamabad Airport, Pakistan, December 18, 2021 37. When are the Indians returning? A big international spectacle is slated to be staged in Islamabad tomorrow regarding Afghanistan with the attendance of foreign ministers from the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC). The participants also include special invitees …
Spectre of war is haunting Europe
A fateful week is ending today for international security with the Russian Foreign Ministry releasing the two documents on security guarantees that Moscow had proposed to Washington as the basis for discussions to ease the tensions over NATO’s eastward expansion and to cease the alliance’s deployments close to Russia’s borders, including in Ukraine. Out of …
A Sino-Russian military alliance is gratuitous (as of now)
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) met with Russian President Vladimir Putin via video link on December 15, 2001 The New York Times got the story correct when its Moscow bureau watched the outcome of the videoconference between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping yesterday and assessed that the US’ two main adversaries …
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Russia-China alliance at the tipping point
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Chinese President Xi Jinping after their talks, Kremlin, Moscow, June 5, 2019. The initiative by Beijing to propose a virtual meeting between President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday radically transforms the geopolitics of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s relentless eastward expansion and the Western military …
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Week after Biden-Putin meeting, crunch time is coming
Mirage-2000 over Black Sea on Dec. 8, as NATO spy planes crowd Russia’s borders. Russian Defence Ministry daily Krasnaya Zvezda said on Dec 13 radars have tracked over 40 aircraft conducting reconnaissance near Russia’s borders over past week. Russia is reiterating its ‘red lines’ seeking long-term legal guarantees against NATO’s further advancement to the east …
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Biden White House spoofs the Kremlin
US President Joe Biden (R) and aides talking with Russian president Vladimir Putin, December 7, 2021 This must be a rare occasion when Russian President Vladimir Putin during his 18 years in the Kremlin came out second best in an encounter with an American president. And it had to be at the hands of President …
Macron’s revenge for AUKUS betrayal
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (R) greets French President Emmanuel Macron upon his arrival in Jeddah, Dec 4, 2021 What distinguishes great powers like France is their sense of history and their profound understanding of the temporality of historical experience — or, how their past, present, and future are thought to be connected in …
Biden-Putin meeting is a cliffhanger
US President Biden dismisses Russia’s red lines on Ukraine What has unfolded in the past 24 hours in the US-Russia diplomatic tango can be seen as a foreplay of the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden, which is slated for Tuesday evening. Russia has got what it has been keenly …
India-Bangladesh ties at inflection point
Prime Minister Modi and Bangladesh counterpart Sheikh Hasina In the life of a nation, perhaps, the first fifty years ought to be regarded as marking the rites of passage through adolescence. India can congratulate itself for helping navigate Bangladesh through a difficult childhood. Parentage of a precocious child isn’t easy and Bangladesh can be opinionated, …
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As UAE embraces Iran, fizz goes pop for Abraham Accords
Iran’s Dy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani (C) with diplomatic adviser to UAE President Anwar Gargash (L) and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Khalifa Almara, Abu Dhabi, Nov. 16, 2021 The terrible secret about Faustian deals is that they need a Mephistopheles to nurture them. That said, Goethe’s Mephisto is very different from the …
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