Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

US will look at Pakistan's role in last 20 years: Blinken

US will look at Pakistan's role in last 20 years: Blinken

US SECRETARY of state Antony Blinken on Monday (13) told his country’s angry lawmakers that Washington will look at the role Pakistan played in the last 20 years after they expressed outrage over Islamabad’s “duplicitous” role in Afghanistan post the 9/11 attacks and demanded that the US reassessed its relationship with Pakistan and its status as a major non-Nato ally.

The lawmakers asked Blinken the Joe Biden administration’s response to the quick collapse of the government in Afghanistan and the state department’s actions to evacuate Americans and others.


Joaquin Castro, a Democratic congressman from Texas, asked the secretary of state that given Pakistan’s long-time support for the Taliban and backing the outfit’s leaders over the years, whether it was time for the US to reassess its ties with Pakistan. Blinken then said that the US will be looking at the role Pakistan played over the last two decades and the role Washington wants to see it play in the coming years.

“For the reasons you cited as well as others, this is one of the things we will be looking at in the day and weeks ahead, the role that Pakistan has played over the last 20 years and the role we would want to see it play in the coming years,” Blinken told Castro, Chair of the Subcommittee on International Development, International Organisations and Global Corporate Social Impact.

Responding to a question on if he knew former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was planning to leave, Blinken said he had spoken to Ghani on the night of August 14 who had stated “fight to the death” and was not aware of Ghani’s plan to leave Afghanistan.

Ghani left war-torn Afghanistan on August 15 as the Taliban entered the capital Kabul and said they were seeking complete power. The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan hours after Ghani left and two weeks before the US was set to complete the withdrawal of its troops.

Observing that the US’ relation with Pakistan bothers him, Democratic congressman Bill Keating, Chair House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy, and the Environment and House Armed Services Committee, said Islamabad has played by all accounts a negative role in Afghan affairs for decades.

They created, named, and helped the Taliban regroup in 2010 in Pakistan and the ISI has strong ties with the Haqqani Network which is responsible for the death of US soldiers, Keating said, adding that Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan celebrated the Taliban takeover of Kabul, describing it as “breaking the shackles of slavery”.

“The Congress has been told that relations with Pakistan are complicated, I say it is duplicitous,” Keating said, adding that the US needs to reassess its relations with Pakistan.

Over the past several months, the Indian embassy in the US led by ambassador Taranjit Singh Sandhu has been making an intensive outreach to eminent US congressmen and senators.

Congressman Scott Perry said Pakistan supports the Haqqani Network and the Taliban with the US taxpayers’ money, asserting the US must no longer pay Pakistan and revoke its non-NATO ally status.

More For You

​London Underground

London Underground services will not resume before 8am on Friday September 12. (Photo: Getty Images)

Tube strike begins as RMT stages five-day walkout over pay

Highlights:

  • First London Underground strike since March 2023 begins
  • RMT members stage five-day walkout after pay talks collapse
  • Union demands 32-hour week; TfL offers 3.4 per cent rise
  • Elizabeth line and Overground to run but face heavy demand

THE FIRST London Underground strike since March 2023 has begun, with a five-day walkout over pay and conditions.

Keep ReadingShow less
Indian restaurant loses licence after Home Office catches illegal workers

Mumbai Local has been stripped of its licence by Harrow council. (Photo: LDRS/Google Maps)

Indian restaurant loses licence after Home Office catches illegal workers

AN INDIAN restaurant in north London has lost its licence after it was found to have repeatedly employed illegal workers.

Harrow council determined that the evidence suggested that using illegal workers was a “systemic approach” to running the premises and it had a “lack of trust” in the business to comply with the law.

Keep ReadingShow less
Trump sees Modi, Putin closer to Xi, but insists US-India ties intact

FILE PHOTO: US president Donald Trump meets with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 13, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Trump sees Modi, Putin closer to Xi, but insists US-India ties intact

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump said India and Russia seem to have been "lost" to China after their leaders met with Chinese president Xi Jinping this week, expressing his annoyance at New Delhi and Moscow as Beijing pushes a new world order.

"Looks like we've lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!" Trump wrote in a social media post accompanying a photo of the three leaders together at Xi's summit in China.

Keep ReadingShow less
Farage pledges Reform UK election push as Tories, Labour falter

Nigel Farage gestures as he speaks during the party's national conference at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, Britain, September 5, 2025. REUTERS/Isabel Infantes

Farage pledges Reform UK election push as Tories, Labour falter

POPULIST leader Nigel Farage vowed to start preparing for government, saying the nation's two main parties were in meltdown and only his Reform UK could ease the anger and despair plaguing the country to "make Britain great again".

To a prolonged standing ovation by a crowd at the annual party conference on Friday (5), Farage for the first time offered a vision of how Britain would be under a Reform government: He pledged to end the arrival of illegal migrants in boats in two weeks, bring back "stop-and-search" policing and scrap net zero policies.

Keep ReadingShow less
Epping protests

The protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping triggered a series of demonstrations across the country during heightened tensions over immigration. (Photo: Getty Images)

Asylum seeker convicted of sex assaults case that led to protests

AN ETHIOPIAN asylum seeker, whose arrest in July led to protests outside a hotel near London where he and other migrants were housed, has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a teenage girl and another woman.

The protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, about 20 miles (30 km) from London, triggered a series of demonstrations across the country during heightened tensions over immigration.

Keep ReadingShow less