Intra-Afghan talks started in Doha, Qatar on September 12 but they are not making much progress. The Taliban and the US-backed Afghan government representatives have very different perspectives on the future set-up in Afghanistan.
Syrian opposition groups oppose the creation of no-conflict zones in the country even though these would provide much needed food and medicines to the besieged people.
The UN-brokered talks in Geneva made little progress because the opposition groups have not fully reconciled to the ground realities following the defeat of the terrorists in Aleppo. Their foreign sponsors do not want peace in Syria.
Peace eludes war-torn Syria because external powers want the war to continue. The latest escalation was the provocative visit of General Joseph Votel, head of US Central Command, to northern Syria without the permission of the Syrian government.
The people of Syria and Yemen would want nothing better than peace but foreign powers are determined to continue the mayhem with tragic loss of life.
Eleventh hour cancellation of peace talks between the two committees representing the government and the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan has raised doubts about peace. Maulana Samiul Haq, who heads the Taliban committee even expressed fears that a military campaign may be launched. He urged the Taliban to show patience and not do anything rash. There are many players, both in Pakistan and outside that do not want the peace talks to succeed.
The self-proclaimed superpower is clutching at straws about “peace talks” following the Taliban’s convincing defeat of US-NATO armies in Afghanistan. While talk about talks has gone on for years with American officials — civilian and military — making bold pronouncements about commencement of “secret talks”, only to discover that some goat herder or a petty bicycle shop owner had taken the “smart” Americans for a long ride, the latter have not given up.
For three weeks, as the Israelis subjected Gaza to some of the most brutal total warfare seen since the US assault on Falluja in 2003, most of the Muslim world could do little more than watch in shock and horror. After the Israeli ceasefire, as Palestinians adjust to the new reality of life in the devastation left by the Israeli blitzkrieg, it is possible to place the events of the last month or so in some sort of political context.
Is it the beginning of the end for foreign occupation in Afghanistan? Seven years after driving the Taliban from power, Western bravado about defeating them militarily has evaporated. Several Western commanders and diplomats have at different times admitted that defeating the Taliban militarily was not possible and that a negotiated settlement to contain the insurgency was the only possible option.
What could have been the best chance for a lasting ceasefire in the southern Philippines was dashed last month after hostilities flared up again between government forces and a faction of the fighters belonging to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), who have been fighting for a separate homeland for Bangsamoro Muslims.
Sudan and Chad are highly unstable neighbours, whose territorial integrity and national security are put at risk not only by internal feuding that spills over their common border but by direct hostility that drives them to support each other's insurgents and at times to go to war.
