The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit at Cairo indicates that the 57-member Islamic body has endeavored to evolve a dialogue format to resolve the crisis in Syria. Despite differences among members on sectarian lines, the summit, held on 6th and 7th of February 2013, posed a common front in urging the Syrian government and opposition to engage in ‘serious dialogue’ for the resolution of the conflict… The meeting of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Egyptian counterpart Mohamed Morsi, the first ever meet between the highest officials of the two countries after a gap of 34 years, was one of the major focus of national and international media. Morsi gave a red carpet welcome to Ahmadinejad…

The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) has become a concern in Eurasian region…  As northern Afghanistan borders Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, it has become convenient for IMU to use porous borders and play havoc in Central Asia. Its cousins in Central Asia like Jundullah (soldiers of Allah) have recently been active in countries like Kazakhstan. Like IMU, the Jundullah has its base in border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan…

India and Pakistan fought four wars in the past. The wars killed hundreds of thousands of people on both the sides of the border, and wasted many opportunities for peace. It was only in early 2000s that both the countries came together, and initiated people-centric confidence building measures… The skirmishes last week have affected the peace process of the past decade, and may lead to its derailment unless swift actions are taken to defuse the tension…

The symbolic victory of Palestine at the UN was met by the Israeli announcement next day on 30 November of building another settlement consisting of 3,000 new housing units in the West Bank. Despite protests from the Palestinians, the Israeli government is determined to go ahead with the project. The project will likely create obstacles against communication between northern and southern parts of the West Bank. The point is: how does this symbolic victory will help Palestine in face of its apparent weakness before the might of the Israeli armed forces…

India’s Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai outlined India’s priority in boosting India-Russia partnership at the sixth India-Russia dialogue in New Delhi last week…Admitting that almost 70 per cent of India’s military hardware are of Soviet/Russian origin, the foreign secretary raised the pitch for invigorating defence relations between the two countries…

In international politics, relations of trade and commerce among nations are known, but spiritual cooperation? This is in fact the central call of religious leaders at Astana in Kazakhstan. While speaking at the 4th conference of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, held on 30th and 31st of May 2012, the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev spoke at length about the global crisis of moral values and the disorder and degeneration that have set in religions…

On 21 May every year India celebrates anti-terrorism day. This is the day on which one of its former prime ministers became victim of terrorist violence in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Rajiv Gandhi, the young leader of India and also the youngest prime minister the country has ever had was on an election campaign, when a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) cadre took the advantage of the crowd and detonated a bomb tied to her waist…

The Foreign Ministerial meeting of Non-aligned Movement last week and its pronouncements particularly in the context of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has revived the old debate whether the body can actually play an effective role in international politics or pass into oblivion as an antediluvian body that emerged as an alternate to bloc politics during the cold war…

While the international community is taking stock of the past one year’s developments in the annals of international terrorism and fundamentalism post-bin Laden, an interesting development takes place in Pakistan. A young man of 30 named Farman Shinwari, earlier active commander with Harkat-ul-Mujahideen known for its Kashmir activities, is appointed head of Pakistan wing of Al Qaeda…

The recent attacks in Afghanistan singly points to the faulty nature of the peace process in the war torn country… The attacks in Heart, Helmand and Kabul on 15 April 2012, which killed about 15 people, were claimed by the Taliban. The Taliban declared that the attacks were orchestrated to give ‘a message to those foreign commanders who claim that the Taliban lost momentum.’ The differentiation of moderate Taliban and radical Taliban has not actually worked on ground despite repeated efforts at London Conference and Kabul Conference, held in 2010…