... status of full SCO member states in the near future will boost the organization’s potential and provide a fresh impetus to further securing its role on the regional and international arena.
The
signing
of the Memorandum on the Obligations of India and Pakistan for becoming SCO member states was a landmark event that took place in Tashkent (link in Russian). The final phase of their accession to the organization was thus launched. It also reaffirmed the positive dynamics of the SCO’s development achieved ...
... settling international conflicts.
Why is the organization expanding now? Is it due to new threats and challenges?
Of paramount significance were the SCO decisions taken at its 2015 summit in Ufa on the launch of the procedure for admission of India and Pakistan. The status of Belarus was elevated from partner to observer. More partners were invited, among them Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia and Nepal. Thus, the group now incorporates 18 states and about 44 percent of the globe's population.
The SCO is ...
President of Pakistan’s
Strategic Vision Institute
Zafar Iqbal Cheema paid a visit to the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) on 22 April.
During his visit to the RIAC, he learned about the Council’s current projects for South and Central Asia,...
On September 23, 2015, RIAC Director General Andrey Kortunov and Deputy Program Director Timur Makhmutov met with Chairman of Pakistan-Russia Business Council Muhammad Farooq Afzal, a member of Karachi Council on Foreign Relations (
KCFR
).
The discussants focused on the current state of Russian-Pakistani relations, stressing poor advance of person-to-person contacts and mutually ...
... expressed support for the negotiation process taking place in Qatar. We can add to this the fact that Mullah Omar resisted the Taliban’s subjugation to Al-Qaeda and frequently disagreed with Osama bin Laden.
Pragmatists oppose the so-called “Pakistan Taliban”, which continues to take a tough stance in its policies and seeks to overthrow the current Afghan regime of Mohammad Ashraf Ghani.
The struggle between the two sides will continue, contributing further to the split within the organization,...
... important foreign policy partner of Afghanistan and a major investor in its economy (with capital investment in excess of 2 billion US dollars, making it the fourth biggest donor country). Before going to India, President Ghani paid visits to China and Pakistan, was received at a high level in the USA, took part in an international conference on Afghanistan in Britain, and visited Saudi Arabia.
These steps by the current Afghan president demonstrated that he is preparing to make some adjustments to ...
... it a threat to its security. The nuclear ambitions of India’s northern neighbor, which also is developing its nuclear weapons program and is not a party to the NPT have not yet received wide international recognition. However, it is known that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif considers nuclear power as the key to solving the problem of energy shortages faced by his country. In 2013, it was announced that the preparatory work for the construction of a new power unit at the Karachi ...
Things change a lot. Permanence of the statuesque is beyond possibility. At least, Sindh is changing; if not Pakistan. Much has been discussed about the fall and gradually decline of Pakistan; however we have to watch calculatedly the every step of its decline. At least three new major scenarios and one old scenario have recently developed: i. Sindh Government ...
On February 12, 2015 Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi paid a
two-day visit to Islamabad
. On the first day, he met with Advisor to the Prime Minister of Pakistan's National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, spoke at a press conference, and held talks with President of Pakistan Mamnoon Hussein. On the second day, he held a detailed discussion with Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif.
Pakistan ...
... their attacks, terrorists are achieving their goal of spreading this feeling of impotence
At about 10 o’clock in the morning local time on 16 December 2014, terrorists sieged a school in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial capital of Peshawar in Pakistan. At half past six that evening all four school buildings were cleared. More than 140 people were killed in the attack, most of them children, and another hundred or so were injured. About 500 people may have been present in the school at the ...
