statecraft

Pakistan and India have a history of holding non-starter talks which goes back to 1960s when the then foreign ministers Swaran Singh and ZA Bhutto held successive rounds of negotiations without any output. It is therefore the need of the hour that the Foreign Office, in consultation with all the stakeholders, should prepare a well defined agenda to discuss issues at the NSA level rather than discussing peripheral non-issues.

Afghanistan has summoned Pakistan's ambassador to explain fighting between the two countries' security forces that killed up to eight Afghan border police, the latest blow in ties that took a plunge this month during a surging Taliban offensive. Pakistan has condemned the recent attacks and blamed "spoilers and detractors" for trying to create mistrust between the two countries.

Commentators have largely overlooked the important role Latin American diplomacy played in pushing Washington to change its fifty-six-year-old policy. This is a mistake, because Latin America’s role in influencing U.S.-Cuban relations holds larger implications for how the United States views diplomatic opposition from Latin America and elsewhere. 

In the 1840s, after receiving his first telegram, then British foreign minister Lord Palmerston reportedly exclaimed “My God, this is the end of diplomacy!” Fast forward 170 years.(...) Diplomacy is not dead, but new messaging tools like Twitter are threatening to upend a tradition of carefully worded statecraft and protocol.

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