Tag: Talks

SEOUL - North and South Korea struggled to settle differences on Tuesday in their first talks since the North's deadly shelling of a South Korean island last November, but agreed to keep talking for a second day. Military officers from the two sides met at the border village of Panmunjom to prepare for a planned higher-level military meeting at a date to be fixed, but disagreements over the agenda kept them haggling well into the evening.
The November 23 bombardment of

LONDON - Afghan Taliban leaders would be willing to break with al Qaeda to end the war in Afghanistan, but US policy is creating younger, more radicalised fighters less open to a peace deal, a report released on Monday said. The report, by Kandahar-based researchers Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, said the Taliban could be willing to ensure Afghanistan was not used as a base for terrorism.
US policy, however, including attempts to fragment the Taliban, "are changing

CAIRO - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's embattled regime struck a landmark deal on Sunday with opposition groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, agreeing to jointly pursue democratic reform. After two weeks of mass street protests and with global pressure mounting for the regime to negotiate a peaceful transition to a more democratic rule, the government met its most powerful foes.
Government spokesman Magdi Radi said the parties agreed to form a committee of judges and

SEOUL - North and South Korean military officers will meet this week at a truce village on their heavily fortified border in a test of a pledge by the North to ease tension after a major security crisis last year. Regional powers have nudged the rivals to defuse the crisis and restart international talks over the North's nuclear programme. The two Koreas are still technically at war because an armistice not a treaty ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
The meeting will be the first

ISLAMABAD - On the eve of the Indo-Pak foreign secretaries' talk in Bhutanese capital Thimpu, Pakistan urged its nuclear neighbour for a "meaningful" dialogue on Kashmir and other disputes saying it was vital for durable peace and stability in South Asian.
Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir is set to meet his Indian counterpart, Nirupama Rao today (Sunday) in Thimpu, the Bhutanese capital on the sidelines of a SAARC ministerial conference in a bid to revive the dialogue process that

KARACHI - The release of the alleged attackers and nominated accused in the Shershah scrap market carnage case was secured under an understanding and pre-planned arrangement between coalition partners Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Pakistan Today has learnt.
Nine named accused were acquitted by an administrative judge of an Anti Terrorism Court two days ago, after the complainant of the case could not recognise the accused in an identification

ISLAMABAD - The talks between the government and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) failed to make progress on Wednesday, as unseen barriers cropped up stopping the forward movement on the implementation of the 10-points agenda given by the main opposition party for its support on the economic reforms.
Talks were held between the government's team led by Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, and the PML-N team led by Senator Ishaq Dar. After the second round of talks on

DUBLIN - Ireland's parties held crisis talks on Monday after the ruling coalition collapsed, with the opposition demanding that the government quickly pass a crucial finance bill and bring forward elections.
Opposition parties gave embattled Prime Minister Brian Cowen a deadline of Friday to comply or to face a no-confidence vote, following the dramatic withdrawal of the Green party from the coalition on Sunday. Finance Minister Brian Lenihan was leading the talks over calls for

TEHRAN - Iran is open to holding further talks with six world powers over its nuclear programme, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday, a day after the failure of the latest round of dialogue.
Ahmadinejad's remarks came after the world powers expressed disappointment over the two days of talks held in Istanbul, even as the United States and Germany voiced hopes of holding new negotiations with the Islamic republic.
"They have talked for a few rounds, but we never

WASHINGTON - As China is an "all-weather friend" of Pakistan, Islamabad is part of America's ongoing dialogue with Chinese leaders, the Obama Administration has said.
"We do talk to China about Pakistan. Obviously, they're neighbours. They've got a relationship and a history. And so it is part of our ongoing dialogue with China," State Department spokesman PJ Crowley told reporters at his daily news conference.
Pakistan and other regional issues did figure in talks between

ISTANBUL - Talks between world powers and Iran ended on Saturday without progress in tackling concerns over Tehran's nuclear programme, and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said no more are planned.
"We had hoped to embark on a discussion of practical ways forward, and have made every effort to make that happen. I am disappointed to say that this has not been possible," Ashton told reporters. She spoke at the end of two days of talks in Istanbul between Iran and the

SEOUL - South Korea on Thursday accepted North Korea's offer of high-level military talks to ease months of tension, but said the North must admit responsibility for two deadly border attacks. The offer came earlier in the day in a message from defence minister Kim Yong-Chun to his counterpart in the South, Kim Kwan-Jin.
Seoul's unification ministry said the North suggested that the two sides exchange views on both incidents and on "military tension reduction" on the peninsula.

JERICHO - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev drove into the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Tuesday for talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on reviving the moribund Middle East peace process.
His convoy from Amman airport in Jordan crossed over the historic Allenby Bridge, in an unusual route for a head of state dictated by an Israeli foreign ministry strike which forced him to cancel the Israel leg of his trip.
Palestinian officials said they could not remember

ISLAMABAD - In its proposals sent to India before the forthcoming foreign secretaries' meeting in Bhutan, Pakistan has urged India to resume negotiations on all outstanding issues rather than confining the dialogue to terrorism alone.
"Pakistan wants the resumption of composite dialogue as was the case before November 2008 when the Indo-Pak talks came to a halt after the terrorist attack on Mumbai. This was conveyed to New Delhi formally in a set of proposals handed over through

NEW YORK - TV's No. 1 show returns for its 10th season Wednesday on Fox TV with its biggest makeover yet, amid questions about the juggernaut's future after four years of declining ratings and what was widely seen as a lackluster season that has yielded fewer record sales than any previous edition. No one would have faulted Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler for hanging up his colorful scarves and taking a nice long vacation earlier this year. After all, he'd recently completed rehab,

TUNIS - Tunisia's main parties held talks on Sunday to form a national unity government as soldiers patrolled the streets amid fears of a backlash by supporters of ousted strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Officials said the government would now investigate killings of civilians during the wave of protests that led to Ben Ali's abrupt departure after 23 years in power and look into allegations of corruption of his inner circle. Around 1,500 protesters held a peaceful rally in the

SEOUL - Fresh nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea are still possible but only if the communist state ends "dangerous provocations" and shows good faith, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday. Gates, ending an Asian tour with a brief stopover in Seoul, said the process must start with talks between the two Koreas. Seoul has rejected as insincere Pyongyang's recent dialogue offers, which come less than two months after a deadly bombardment of a South Korean island.