Pakistan taliban
Pakistani Taliban kill police officer a day after calling off truce
A Pakistani police officer was shot dead and another officer was hurt while guarding a polio vaccination team on Saturday, police said, in an attack claimed by...
The Taliban have steadfastly refused to negotiate with the internationally recognised government in Kabul.
The so-called intra-Afghan dialogue, which was due to take place in Doha this weekend, fell apart at the last minute in a row over a large number of delegates Kabul wanted to send.
Talks between the two sides have stalled after the Taliban accused Khalilzad of straying from the agreed agenda and there is no clarity on when they may resume.
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi will head the Pakistani delegation at 73rd UN General Assembly session set to open on 18 September.
Khan, 65, a former cricket legend, was sworn in as prime minister on Saturday after his party swept to power in last month’s election.
And in his victory speech, Khan offered an olive branch to India and called for mutually beneficial ties with the United States.
The two sides had discussed proposals to allow the Taliban free movement in two provinces where they would not be attacked, an idea that President Ashraf Ghani has already rejected.
The party of Khan’s jailed chief rival, ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, called the count an assault on democracy in the nuclear-armed, Muslim country which has a history of military rule.
At least 20 people have been killed on election day in the north-western city of Quetta.
Polling gets under way across the country at 8 am and closes at 6 pm. Results will start trickling in within hours of polls closing and the likely winner should be known by around 2 am on Thursday.
Pakistan’s government and parliament is due to be dissolved on 31 May, when a new interim prime minister and an interim administration is meant to take over.
Malala Yousafzai, traveling with her father and younger brother, met Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in the capital, Islamabad, before giving a brief speech on national television.
Pakistani station Geo TV showed footage of Yousafzai at Islamabad’s international airport walking to a car escorted by a security convoy.
The coalition said on Tuesday that the Taliban contested or controlled only 44% of Afghan districts as of October 2017.
A glance at US budget figures suggest the amounts frozen could exceed $1 billion.
Pakistan civilian and military chiefs on Tuesday rejected “incomprehensible” US comments and summoned American Ambassador David Hale to explain Trump’s tweet.
The gunmen wearing explosives-filled vests stormed the church in Quetta city when Sunday services had just opened.
Local government official Ahmed Aziz Tarrar said 16 people were killed and over 30 wounded in the blast.