KABUL: Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai met with Anas Haqqani, a key member of the Taliban, on Wednesday, as top Taliban leaders arrived in Afghanistan to begin crucial talks for the formation of a new government.
The Haqqani Network, which was branded a terrorist group by the US in 2012, is an important faction of the Taliban who captured the Afghan capital, Kabul, in a stunning takeover on Sunday, returning to power nearly 20 years after being toppled in a US-led invasion.
As the Taliban encircled Kabul, President Ashraf Ghani flew out of the country and later posted on Facebook that he left to avoid bloodshed in the capital, without saying where he had gone.
Since then, an Afghan government council comprising Karzai, Gulbudin Hekmatyar, leader of the Hizb-e-Islami political and paramilitary group, and Abdullah Abdullah, the old administration’s main peace envoy, have been seeking to draw out a future roadmap for Afghanistan.
The Taliban delegation led by Baradar, head of the group’s political office in Qatar, arrived in Afghanistan on Tuesday evening, onboard a Qatari military plane that landed in southern Kandahar province, the group’s stronghold.
During an overnight press conference in Kandahar, Mullah Khairullah Khairkhaw, a member of the Taliban team, said that the delegation “will hold consultations and discussions with local and other leaders about the formation of an inclusive government.”
Meanwhile, Mohammad Yusof Saha, a spokesman for Karzai, told the Associated Press that preliminary meetings with the Taliban team would facilitate talks with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s top political leader.
No other details were available.
A Taliban source in Kandahar, requesting anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to the media, told Arab News that the Taliban delegation is expected to travel to Kabul later in the day, where Baradar “will also meet with a group of ethnic Afghan strongmen,” who have served in key government positions in the past.
The start of crucial talks between the Taliban and government officials comes amid warnings from major world powers opposing the Taliban’s reinstatement of an Islamic Emirate when they ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and were accused of imposing harsh and repressive policies.
The Taliban insist they have changed and, in recent days, have vowed not to seek revenge, uphold women’s rights in the framework of Islamic law, ensure media freedom and offer amnesty for government officials in Afghanistan.
Unlike their past regime, which lived in global isolation — with only Pakistan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia recognizing their government — the Taliban, in recent months, have repeatedly said they are not after a “monopoly of power” and would form a government “acceptable to all ethnic groups.”
Since the Taliban’s takeover on Sunday, the US has frozen billions in Afghan revenues, blocking the Taliban from accessing money, while several countries have warned against holding back much-needed aid for the war-torn and cash-strapped nation until the Taliban sees through its promise for an “all-inclusive” government.
A source close to the Taliban told Arab News that Baradar — in his early 50s and whose name means “brother” — was most likely to head an interim government and take charge of the country.
However, a Kabul-based analyst, Wahidullah Ghazikhail, told Arab News that he was not “optimistic” of the two sides reaching an agreement soon.
“There will be meetings and discussions, but there won’t be any quick breakthrough as all sides will bargain because this is not a simple issue,” he said.
“They would talk about changing the constitution among other matters that would highly likely be very difficult. I am not very optimistic that they will reach an agreement soon,” he added.
Amid the uncertainty, thousands of Afghans have tried to flee the country in recent days, with the Taliban taking over the civilian side of the Kabul international airport on Tuesday.
Hundreds of people were gathered outside the airport on Wednesday, according to media reports.
Taliban leader, former Afghan president begin crucial talks on new government
https://arab.news/w4wpd
Taliban leader, former Afghan president begin crucial talks on new government
- Haqqani meets with Karzai, who is part of a council formed after Kabul fell
- Taliban delegation led by Mullah Baradar arrived in Afghanistan Tuesday evening
How Gulf ties became key focus of India’s foreign policy over past decade
- Modi is the only Indian PM to have officially visited all GCC states
- By 2018, the GCC became India’s largest regional trading bloc
Ties with Gulf countries have become a key focus of India’s foreign policy over the past 10 years, the latest report by the Council for Strategic and Defense Research shows, highlighting New Delhi’s special focus on Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Headquartered in the Indian capital, the CSDR is a think tank specializing in research on geopolitics, foreign policy, and military strategy. Its report published last month, “From Trees to Forests: The Evolution of India-Middle East Ties post 2014,” highlights India’s investment in bilateral relations with Gulf Cooperation Council countries, which are independent of larger global frameworks.
The effort to strengthen the connection started before Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014, but it has gained momentum with his frequent visits to the six-member bloc comprising Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.
“In the last 10 years, India has substantiated this effort by filling crucial gaps in political, economic, and military contact with key states, with a special focus on Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” Bashir Ali Abbas, senior research associate at CSDR and the report’s author, told Arab News.
“In the last 10 years, the Middle East has also emerged as a strategic space for India, with new defense relationships, and economic visions which also fit with the Gulf’s own focus on economic diversification.”
While India’s relations with the Gulf region span centuries, it currently has the largest concentration of the Indian diaspora — about 9.7 million people.
“And India’s top oil suppliers at any point in time inevitably are at least three Gulf states. This alone necessitates that India pay close attention to the region,” Abbas said.
“In India, policy makers and official decision-making institutions have updated their understanding of the region, but more importantly its changing nature. This evolved understanding has enabled the rise of new strategic partnerships, and PM Narendra Modi is the only Indian PM to have officially visited all six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council.”
By 2018, the GCC became India’s largest regional trading bloc, with an annual trade value of $104 billion in FY2017-2018. The volume that year surpassed India-ASEAN trade of $81 billion, and India-EU trade — $102 billion.
Currently, it is even higher, with the Indian government estimating it at $162 billion in FY2023-24.
In 2019, India became only the fourth state to establish a Strategic Partnership Council with Saudi Arabia, following Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to New Delhi.
During the Kingdom’s presidency of the Group of 20 largest economies in 2020, the two countries started to forge partnerships and bilateral programs that saw further development as India took the G20 presidency in 2023.
Over the past four years, the countries have since also engaged in a series of bilateral navy, air force and army exercises.
“Today, India sees Saudi Arabia as a strategic partner, with political and economic ties robust enough to also substantial cooperation in defense and security,” Abbas said.
“Given both India’s own Viksit Bharat 2047 development vision and (the crown prince’s) Vision 2030, India and Saudi Arabia are now driven by shared economic and strategic goals.”
With the UAE, India signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in 2022, following which their bilateral trade grew to $85 billion in just over a year. The number of multi-sectoral memoranda of understanding between Indian and Emirati public and private entities has since reached over 80, according to the CSDR report.
“India also sought to reframe other bilateral relationships where fresh opportunities had arisen,” it said, adding that New Delhi was “closing the Gulf circle,” with strategic partnerships signed with Kuwait during Modi’s visit in 2024, and with Qatar during Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani’s state trip to New Delhi in early 2025.
The relations “will certainly see a positive trajectory in the near and distant future — especially if it is backed up by greater avenues of intellectual contact,” Abbas said.
“Greater intellectual contact and an evolved popular understanding will enhance the strategic relationships between India and its Arab partners, through the injection of more ideas, perspectives, and actors who can work as champions for closer ties.”
How Gulf ties became key focus of India’s foreign policy over past decade
- Modi is the only Indian PM to have officially visited all GCC states
- By 2018, the GCC became India’s largest regional trading bloc
Ties with Gulf countries have become a key focus of India’s foreign policy over the past 10 years, the latest report by the Council for Strategic and Defence Research shows, highlighting New Delhi’s special focus on Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Headquartered in the Indian capital, the CSDR is a think tank specializing in research on geopolitics, foreign policy, and military strategy. Its report published last month, “From Trees to Forests: The Evolution of India-Middle East Ties post 2014,” highlights India’s investment in bilateral relations with Gulf Cooperation Council countries, which are independent of larger global frameworks.
The effort to strengthen the connection started before Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014, but it has gained momentum with his frequent visits to the six-member bloc comprising Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.
“In the last 10 years, India has substantiated this effort by filling crucial gaps in political, economic, and military contact with key states, with a special focus on Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” Bashir Ali Abbas, senior research associate at CSDR and the report’s author, told Arab News.
“In the last 10 years, the Middle East has also emerged as a strategic space for India, with new defense relationships, and economic visions which also fit with the Gulf’s own focus on economic diversification.”
While India’s relations with the Gulf region span centuries, it currently has the largest concentration of the Indian diaspora — about 9.7 million people.
“And India’s top oil suppliers at any point in time inevitably are at least three Gulf states. This alone necessitates that India pay close attention to the region,” Abbas said.
“In India, policy makers and official decision-making institutions have updated their understanding of the region, but more importantly its changing nature. This evolved understanding has enabled the rise of new strategic partnerships, and PM Narendra Modi is the only Indian PM to have officially visited all six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council.”
By 2018, the GCC became India’s largest regional trading bloc, with an annual trade value of $104 billion in FY2017-2018. The volume that year surpassed India-ASEAN trade of $81 billion, and India-EU trade — $102 billion.
Currently, it is even higher, with the Indian government estimating it at $162 billion in FY2023-24.
In 2019, India became only the fourth state to establish a Strategic Partnership Council with Saudi Arabia, following Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to New Delhi.
During the Kingdom’s presidency of the Group of 20 largest economies in 2020, the two countries started to forge partnerships and bilateral programs that saw further development as India took the G20 presidency in 2023.
Over the past four years, the countries have since also engaged in a series of bilateral navy, air force and army exercises.
“Today, India sees Saudi Arabia as a strategic partner, with political and economic ties robust enough to also substantial cooperation in defense and security,” Abbas said.
“Given both India’s own Viksit Bharat 2047 development vision and (the crown prince’s) Vision 2030, India and Saudi Arabia are now driven by shared economic and strategic goals.”
With the UAE, India signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in 2022, following which their bilateral trade grew to $85 billion in just over a year. The number of multi-sectoral memoranda of understanding between Indian and Emirati public and private entities has since reached over 80, according to the CSDR report.
“India also sought to reframe other bilateral relationships where fresh opportunities had arisen,” it said, adding that New Delhi was “closing the Gulf circle,” with strategic partnerships signed with Kuwait during Modi’s visit in 2024, and with Qatar during Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani’s state trip to New Delhi in early 2025.
The relations “will certainly see a positive trajectory in the near and distant future — especially if it is backed up by greater avenues of intellectual contact,” Abbas said.
“Greater intellectual contact and an evolved popular understanding will enhance the strategic relationships between India and its Arab partners, through the injection of more ideas, perspectives, and actors who can work as champions for closer ties.”
Don’t let deep sea become ‘wild west’, Guterres tells world leaders
- United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Monday the world could not let the deepest oceans “become the wild west,” at the start in France of a global summit on the seas
NICE: United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Monday the world could not let the deepest oceans “become the wild west,” at the start in France of a global summit on the seas.
World leaders are attending the UN Ocean Conference in Nice as nations tussle over contentious rules on mining the seabed for critical minerals and the terms of a global treaty on plastic pollution.
US President Donald Trump has brought urgency to the debate around deep-sea mining, moving to fast-track US exploration in international waters and sidestepping global efforts to regulate the nascent sector.
The International Seabed Authority, which has jurisdiction over the ocean floor outside national waters, is meeting in July to discuss a global mining code to regulate mining in the ocean depths.
Guterres said he supported these negotiations and urged caution as countries navigate these “new waters on seabed mining.”
“The deep sea cannot become the wild west,” he said, to applause from the plenary floor.
Many countries oppose seabed mining, and France is hoping more nations in Nice will join a moratorium until more is known about the ecological impacts of the practice.
French President Emmanuel Macron said a moratorium on deep-sea mining was “an international necessity.”
“I think it’s madness to launch predatory economic action that will disrupt the deep seabed, disrupt biodiversity, destroy it and release irrecoverable carbon sinks — when we know nothing about it,” the French president said.
The deep sea, Greenland and Antarctica were “not for sale,” he said in follow up remarks to thunderous applause.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called for “clear action” from the seabed authority to end a “predatory race” among nations seeking critical minerals on the ocean floor.
“We now see the threat of unilateralism looming over the ocean. We cannot allow what happened to international trade to happen to the sea,” he said.
Macron said a global pact to protect marine life in international waters had received enough support to become law and was “a done deal.”
The high seas treaty struck in 2023 requires ratifications from 60 signatory countries to enter into force, something France hoped to achieve before Nice.
Macron said about 50 nations had ratified the treaty and 15 others had formally committed to joining them.
This “allows us to say that the high seas treaty will be implemented,” he said.
Other commitments are expected on Monday in Nice, where around 60 heads of state and government have joined thousands of business leaders, scientists and civil society activists.
On Monday, the United Kingdom is expected to announce a partial ban on bottom trawling in half its marine protected areas, putting the destructive fishing method squarely on the summit agenda.
Bottom trawling involves huge fishing nets indiscriminately dragging the ocean floor, a process shockingly captured in a recent documentary by British naturalist David Attenborough.
Macron said on Saturday that France would restrict trawling in some of its marine protected areas but was criticized by environment groups for not going far enough.
On Sunday, French environment minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher hinted at “important announcements” during Nice about the creation of new marine protected areas.
Samoa led the way this past week, announcing that 30 percent of its national waters would be under protection with the creation of nine marine parks.
Just eight percent of global oceans are designated for marine conservation, despite a globally agreed target to achieve 30 percent coverage by 2030.
But even fewer are considered truly protected, as some countries impose next to no rules on what is forbidden in marine zones or lack the finance to enforce any regulations.
Nations will face calls to cough up the missing finance for ocean protection.
Small island states are expected in numbers at the summit to demand money and political support to combat rising seas, marine trash and the plunder of fish stocks.
The summit will not produce a legally binding agreement at its close like a climate COP or treaty negotiation.
But diplomats and other observers said it could mark a much-needed turning point in global ocean conservation if leaders rose to the occasion.
“We say to you, if you are serious about protecting the ocean, prove it,” said President Surangel Whipps Jr of Palau, a low-lying Pacific nation.
Italians head to polls in referendum on citizenship and labor, but vote risks sinking on low turnout
Italians head to polls in referendum on citizenship and labor, but vote risks sinking on low turnout
- Opinion polls published in mid-May showed that only 46 percent of Italians were aware of the issues driving the referendums
ROME: Italians headed to the polls Monday on the second and final day of referendums that would make it easier for children born in Italy to foreigners to obtain citizenship, and on providing more job protections. But partial data showed a low turnout, well below the required 50 percent plus one threshold, risking to invalidate the vote.
Campaigners for the change in the citizenship law say it will help second-generation Italians born in the country to non- European Union parents better integrate into a culture they already see as theirs.
Partial data from Italy’s Interior Ministry published at 2100 GMT on Sunday showed that national turnout stood at 22.7 percent, just over half of the 41 percent registered at the same time of the day in the latest comparable referendum held in 2011. The polling stations close later Monday at 1300 GMT.
The new rules, if passed, could affect about 2.5 million foreign nationals who still struggle to be recognized as citizens.
The measures were proposed by Italy’s main union and left-wing opposition parties. Premier Giorgia Meloni showed up at the polls on Sunday evening but didn’t cast a ballot — an action widely criticized by the left as antidemocratic, since it won’t contribute to reaching the necessary threshold to make the vote valid.
“While some members of her ruling coalition have openly called for abstention, Meloni has opted for a more subtle approach,” said analyst Wolfango Piccoli of the Teneo consultancy based in London. ”It’s yet another example of her trademark fence-sitting.’’
Rights at stake
Supporters say this reform would bring Italy’s citizenship law in line with many other European countries, promoting greater social integration for long-term residents. It would also allow faster access to civil and political rights, such as the right to vote, eligibility for public employment and freedom of movement within the EU.
“The real drama is that neither people who will vote ‘yes’ nor those who intend to vote ‘no’ or abstain have an idea of what (an) ordeal children born from foreigners have to face in this country to obtain a residence permit,” said Selam Tesfaye, an activist and campaigner with the Milan-based human rights group Il Cantiere.
Activists and opposition parties also denounced the lack of public debate on the measures, accusing the governing center-right coalition of trying to dampen interest in sensitive issues that directly impact immigrants and workers.
In May, Italy’s AGCOM communications authority lodged a complaint against RAI state television and other broadcasters over a lack of adequate and balanced coverage.
Opinion polls published in mid-May showed that only 46 percent of Italians were aware of the issues driving the referendums. Turnout projections were even weaker for a vote scheduled for the first weekend of Italy’s school holidays, at around 35 percent of around 50 million electors, well below the required quorum.
“Many believe that the referendum institution should be reviewed in light of the high levels of abstention (that) emerged in recent elections and the turnout threshold should be lowered,” said Lorenzo Pregliasco, political analyst and pollster at YouTrend.
Some analysts note, however, that the center-left opposition could claim a victory even if the referendum fails on condition that the turnout surpasses the 12.3 million voters who backed the winning center-right coalition in the 2022 general election.
Ukraine says Russia launched 479 drones in the war’s biggest overnight drone bombardment
- Ukraine’s air defenses destroyed 277 drones and 19 missiles in mid-flight
KYIV, Ukraine: Russia launched 479 drones at Ukraine in the war ‘s biggest overnight drone bombardment, the Ukrainian air force said Monday.
Apart from drones, 20 missiles of various types were fired at different parts of Ukraine, according to the air force, which said the barrage targeted mainly central and western areas of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s air defenses destroyed 277 drones and 19 missiles in mid-flight, an air force statement said, claiming that only 10 drones or missiles hit their target.
It was not possible to independently verify the claim.
Russia’s aerial attacks usually start late in the evening and end in the morning, because drones are harder to spot in the dark.
Russia has relentlessly battered civilian areas of Ukraine with Shahed drones during the more than 3-year war. The attacks have killed more that 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations.
Russia says it targets only military targets.
