Azizullah Khan

That Pakistan released 13 Taliban commanders on the request of the delegation of the Afghanistan peace council is a welcome move. But given the formidable challenge of rehabilitation and stabilisation of Afghanistan, one can easily shrug off the development as not very significant. The little importance it carries is because it is arguably indicative of […]

Mr Obama’s unrelentingly aggressive attitude towards Pakistan in the management of crises-like situations caused by last year’s cataclysmic events indicated that he wanted to tighten the noose around Pakistan. But owing to his justifiable obsession with the election campaign for a second term, he failed to do so. Now that he is elected for another […]

It is becoming increasingly easy to realise that Pakistan is heading towards a civil war. The Attack on Malala Yousafzai indeed proved a turning point but for terrorists’ attacks against us, not vice versa. From the attack on key social activists like Marvi Sirmed, peace activists of the Malakand division and the renewed threats to […]

Imran Khan’s tsunami is taking a nap these days, may it not go into an eternal sleep. In a follow-up to Shireen Mazari and Muhammad Khan Hoti’s resignations from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the former the central vice president and the latter a senior leader of the party, yet another senior leader and old guard […]

As expected, the attack on Malala Yousafzai developed the long sought after national consensus that had been stressed as a genuine precondition for decisive action against the Taliban based in the North Waziristan Agency (NWA). However, now it is being ignored on the basis of another pretext: that radical Islamists (who are just a fistful) […]

After every spectacular terrorist attack in Pakistan, there starts a debate about talks with the Taliban. Liberals and leftists oppose the talks, arguing that it is will merely give them opportunity to rearm themselves and gather potential for new offensives. They imply that the Taliban are irreconcilable. Conservatives and rightists support the talks, saying that […]

The Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) is on the horns of a dilemma these days. It craves to emerge as a legitimate entity and settle itself in the new political alignment of Pakistan. For this purpose, its iconic leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman seems to be striving to transform it from a radical and reactionary jihadist party to a […]

As is customary for Pak-India talks, Foreign Minister S M Krishna’s visit to Islamabad did not move most in Pakistan and, perhaps, not in India. Notwithstanding the agreements about matters of secondary importance like visa liberalisation, trade, travel or cultural exchange — achievements wrongly overlooked by the general public as not substantive — no agreement […]

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan in particular, and the populace in general, should stay assured that talks with the Taliban in the given circumstances are not something short of surrender before them. It is the state not the Taliban that is ‘begging’ for negotiations, and in corollary, has to negotiate from a very […]

The issue of new provinces is yet to be settled. The political instability we are facing cannot eclipse the issue for much longer; the smaller nationalities of Pakistan raise their demand for new provinces every now and then. Every time the Seraikis of southern Punjab or Bahawalpuris of Bahawalpur raise their demand, the Hazaras of […]