SCA MORNING PRESS CLIPS

epubdos : Afghanistan

Prepared for the U.S. Department of State

Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs

By TechMIS
www.TechMIS.com

Mobile User Copy

TO:	SCA & Staff
DATE:	Friday, June 20, 2025 6:30 AM ET

Afghanistan

Man Who Says He Helped US Soldiers in Afghanistan Now in ICE Detention (Newsweek)

Newsweek [6/18/2025 12:39 PM, Dan Gooding, 3805K]
Federal agents detained a former U.S. Army interpreter from Afghanistan, forced to flee his home country because of the Taliban, at his asylum hearing in California last week.

The arrest at an immigration court in San Diego on Thursday was caught on video, with Sayed Naser heard calmly telling the masked agents detaining him that he worked as an interpreter in his home country.

Newsweek reached out to Naser’s attorney and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for comment via contact form and email Wednesday morning.

Why It Matters

Afghans who worked with the U.S. military during its 20-year stretch in the country were welcomed to the U.S. as refugees, on Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) following the U.S. withdrawal in 2021, but some have had TPS withdrawn by the Trump administration, opening them up to the prospect of deportation.

What To Know

Naser was legally paroled into the U.S. in 2024, per immigration documents shared with Newsweek, having applied for asylum using the Biden-era CBP One app and entering via the San Ysidro port of entry on the southwest border.

The interpreter, who worked with the U.S. military for about three years, had a pending SIV application, wanting to stay in the U.S. out of fear he would be detained, tortured and killed should he return to Afghanistan. His brother was killed by the Taliban in 2023, while his father was abducted.

"While collaborating with U.S. forces, I faced numerous threats and attacks," Naser wrote in his declaration to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS). "Several times, I narrowly escaped harm, but over seven of our vehicles were burned by the Taliban.

"To them, anyone or any company working with foreign forces is considered an infidel and a legitimate target for killing. For this reason, after the fall [of the] government, it became impossible for us to live in Afghanistan. We had to leave the country by any means necessary.".

Naser’s story is similar to many who had helped American troops and were left behind during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in 2021. He first traveled to Brazil before making the journey north to the U.S.-Mexico border via the notorious Darien Gap.

On Thursday, Naser had his immigration court hearing in San Diego, but the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) attorney reportedly said that his case was "‘improvidently issued," giving Naser and his attorney, Brian McGoldrick, 10 days to respond.

McGoldrick said at a briefing Tuesday that an asylum hearing was set for September and court was adjourned. Outside the courtroom, ICE agents were waiting and demanded to know Naser’s name.

When agents asked McGoldrick for documents, he said in the video that he had none for them. Agents then moved to take Naser, placing him in handcuffs as he turned to the camera.

"I worked with the U.S. military back in my home country, I have all the documents, I didn’t have a credible-fear interview," Naser said, repeatedly saying he worked with the U.S. military before agents took him away to the Otay Mesa Detention Center.

Naser’s arrest was denounced by the group Unite for Veterans, which said that the U.S. had a responsibility to protect Afghan allies. The advocacy group #AfghanEvac also called out the federal government for breaking its promise to those who served alongside U.S. troops.

ICE has increased its detention efforts at immigration courts across the country, amid pressure from the White House to reach a daily arrest target of 3,000 immigrants.

Brian McGoldrick, Naser’s attorney, at a press briefing Tuesday: "It’s really shocking what’s happening in the courthouse in San Diego and around the country. You walk down the hall and it’s like you’re walking down executioner’s row...It’s just so intimidating. The clients are terrorized.".

What People Are Saying

#AfghanEvac, in a statement shared with Newsweek: "Let’s be clear: "Improvidently issued" is being abused. It has no standard meaning, no transparency, and no accountability. It is being weaponized to short-circuit due process and to meet quiet enforcement quotas. And Sayed is not alone. This is part of a broader pattern: quietly shutting doors, denying pathways, and undermining the very mechanisms we created to keep our promises to our allies.".

Unite for Veterans, in a press release: "Our Afghan allies protected us when we needed them. They shared our humvees. They were wounded with us. They gave their lives to protect us. Now it is our turn to look after them. We owe them. They are our teammates, our fellow soldiers, patriots. We cannot let those who risked their lives for our shared values be denied the safety and opportunity they deserve and that we promised them.".

Naser remains in custody and is awaiting further hearings. ICE has not commented on the case.

Smartphones banned from schools in Afghan Taliban’s heartland (Agence France-Presse)

Agence France-Presse [6/18/2025 7:13 AM, Staff, 58908K]
A ban on smartphones in schools issued by Taliban authorities in southern Afghanistan came into force, students and teachers confirmed to AFP on Wednesday, over concerns of "focus" and "Islamic law".

The directive by the provincial Education Department in Kandahar applies to students, teachers and administrative staff in schools and religious schools.

"This decision has been made to ensure educational discipline, focus", the statement said, adding that it was taken from a "sharia perspective" and that smartphones contribute to "the destruction of the future generation".

The policy, which has already taken effect in schools across the province, has divided opinion among teachers and students.

"We did not bring smart phones with us to school today", Saeed Ahmad, a 22-year-old teacher, told AFP.

"I think this is a good decision so that there is more focus on studies," he added.

Mohammad Anwar, an 11th grader, said "the teachers are saying if anyone is seen bringing a phone, they will start searching the students.".

Another 12th-grade student, refusing to give his name, said the ban would hinder learning in a country where girls are barred from secondary school and university as part of restrictions the UN has dubbed "gender apartheid".

"When the teacher writes a lesson on the board, I often take a picture so I could write it down later. Now I can´t. This decision will negatively affect our studies.".

The ban has also taken root in religious schools known as madrassas.

"Now there’s a complete ban. No one brings smartphones anymore," Mohammad, 19 years old madrassa student said.

A number of countries have in recent years moved to restrict mobile phones from classrooms such as France, Denmark and Brazil.

The Taliban authorities have already introduced a ban on images of living beings in media, with multiple provinces announcing restrictions and some Taliban officials refusing to be photographed or filmed.

A Taliban security personnel uses a non-smartphone along a road in Kandahar on June 17, 2025.

The Taliban’s Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada called last week on officials and scholars to reduce their use of smartphones.

"This is the order of the leaders, and we must accept it," a 28-year-old security forces member told AFP without giving his name as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

"I have now found a brick phone ... I used WhatsApp on my smartphone sometimes, but now I don’t use it anymore," he added.

Some Taliban officials in Kandahar have started sharing their numbers for brick phones and switching off online messaging apps.

Abandoning our Afghan allies is a moral and strategic mistake (The Hill – opinion)

The Hill [6/18/2025 12:00 PM, Luke Coffey, 47007K]
It is a bad time for thousands of Afghans who risked their lives helping the U.S. over the past two decades.

On June 2, it was announced that the office that helps with relocation of Afghans who helped America will close on July 1.

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security formally ended Temporary Protected Status for roughly 10,000 Afghans who fled their country after the Taliban’s return to power in 2021. Under the new directive, Afghan nationals currently residing in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status have just under six weeks to leave, setting a deadline of July 14. Most of these Afghans are waiting for the backlog to clear to get the Special Immigrant Visa that was promised to them because of the help they provided the U.S. since its 2001 invasion.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stated that "Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country." Yet, only days later, the State Department included Afghan citizens on a new "travel ban" list due to deteriorating security situation and threat of terrorism from that country, contradicting what Noem and her department had claimed.

Anyone paying attention to Afghanistan since the Taliban’s return knows that it is not safe. The country has collapsed into an economic and humanitarian crisis. Al Qaeda has reestablished its position, operating training camps and safe houses across the country. According to a recent U.N. report, Afghanistan is now a "permissive environment" for al Qaeda consolidation. Meanwhile, the Afghan branch of the so-called Islamic State has never been stronger.

Girls cannot attend school beyond grade six. Women cannot work or even leave their homes without permission from a male relative. Ethnic and religious minorities continue to face persecution. The Taliban are hunting down Afghans who worked with the U.S. and its allies — often with deadly consequences. The claim that Afghanistan is now "safe" is false.

This issue is tricky for the Trump administration. In February 2020, President Trump reached a deal with the Taliban that planted the seed for the withdrawal of U.S. forces by May 2021. That agreement set in motion the Taliban’s return to power.

When President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he had the chance to cancel the deal, but he did not. By July, most U.S. and allied troops had left. On August 15, the Taliban seized Kabul. By Sept. 11, 2021 — the 20th anniversary of 9/11 — they controlled more of Afghanistan than they had on that tragic day in 2001. Both presidents share the blame.

In the chaotic withdrawal, the U.S. left behind an estimated $7 billion in military equipment — most of which is now in Taliban hands or circulating on the regional black market.

But the greater cost has been moral: the abandonment of tens of thousands of Afghans who served alongside American forces. Many of these men and women risked their lives for U.S. forces as interpreters, engineers, medics and contractors. For them, the Taliban’s return is not just a change of government — it’s a death sentence.

Given the chaos the Biden administration allowed at America’s southern border, it might be tempting to fold the Afghan resettlement issue into the broader immigration debate. But that approach would be both lazy and strategically short-sighted. Afghanistan and the broader regions of Central and South Asia will remain central to U.S. counterterrorism and foreign policy for the foreseeable future, and pretending otherwise is naive.

There are four clear strategic reasons why helping Afghans who aided the U.S. is not only just but smart.

First, honoring our commitment to Afghan partners sends a powerful message to future allies. In every modern conflict, American forces have relied on local partners for on-the-ground support. That pattern will almost certainly continue. If local partners believe the U.S. won’t protect them when the fight is over, they will be far less willing to take that risk, which would weaken America’s global reach and credibility.

Second, Afghans already in the U.S. represent a critical talent pool. Many are trained linguists and cultural experts. During the two-decade U.S. mission in Afghanistan, they filled roles that no one else could. Yet in November 2023, Defense Language Institute ceased instruction in Pashto, one of Afghanistan’s national languages. Should the U.S. again need Pashto speakers or regional experts, the Afghan American community will be indispensable.

Third, these Afghans could help shape a post-Taliban Afghanistan. After 2001, the Afghan American diaspora was key to rebuilding the country. The current Taliban regime is fractured and unlikely to maintain control indefinitely. Offering refuge to educated, professionally trained Afghans bolsters U.S. capacity now and supports future stabilization efforts.

Fourth, Afghan immigrants provide indirect humanitarian aid via remittances. In 2019, remittances made up 4.4 percent of Afghanistan’s GDP. Since late 2021, the U.S. Treasury has allowed Afghans here to send money home despite sanctions. These remittances reduce the burden on American taxpayers and support Afghan families in crisis.

Beyond these strategic benefits, there is the moral argument. Doing right by those who stood with America is a matter of national honor. The way a nation treats its allies — especially when they are vulnerable — says everything about its values. These Afghans risked everything for us. Abandoning them now is a betrayal.

Trump began the withdrawal process. Biden finished it. Now, Trump has a rare second chance to do the right thing. His administration can correct a serious moral and strategic failure by reversing the decision to revoke Temporary Protected Status for Afghan nationals and instead prioritizing their protection.

Rather than forcing them to leave, the U.S. should expedite visa processing and safe relocation for Afghan allies. This isn’t just about compassion — it’s about keeping our word, protecting our interests and preparing for the future.

Pakistan

Trump hosts Pakistani army chief, disagrees with India over India-Pakistan war mediation (Reuters)

Reuters [6/19/2025 5:07 AM, Jeff Mason, Saeed Shah and Shivam Patel, 1083K]
U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Pakistan’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir at the White House on Wednesday in an unprecedented meeting that risked worsening a disagreement with India over the president’s claim that he stopped last month’s conflict between the nuclear-armed South Asian foes.

The lunch meeting was the first time a U.S. president had hosted the head of Pakistan’s army, widely regarded as the most powerful figure in the country, at the White House unaccompanied by senior Pakistani civilian officials.

Trump said he was honoured to meet Munir and that they had discussed Iran, which he said Pakistan knew better than most. Trump told reporters he had thanked Munir for ending the war with India, for which he also praised Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who he spoke to on Tuesday night.

"Two very smart people decided not to keep going with that war; that could have been a nuclear war," Trump told reporters.

Pakistan’s military said in a statement that the two discussed trade, economic development, and cryptocurrency during the two-hour meeting and also exchanged views on tensions between Israel and Iran.

"President Trump expressed keen interest in forging a mutually beneficial trade partnership with Pakistan based on long-term strategic convergence and shared interests," the army said.

Munir had been expected to press Trump not to enter Israel’s war with Iran and seek a ceasefire, Pakistani officials and experts said. A section of Pakistan’s embassy in Washington represents Iran’s interests in the United States, as Tehran does not have diplomatic relations with the U.S.

Pakistan has condemned Israel’s airstrikes against Iran, saying they violate international law and threaten regional stability.

The meeting represented a major boost in U.S.-Pakistan ties, which had largely languished under Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden, as both courted India as part of efforts to push back against China.

Asked earlier what he wanted to achieve from meeting Munir, Trump told reporters: "Well, I stopped a war ... I love Pakistan. I think Modi is a fantastic man. I spoke to him last night. We’re going to make a trade deal with Modi of India.

"But I stopped the war between Pakistan and India. This man was extremely influential in stopping it from the Pakistan side, Modi from the India side and others," he said. "They were going at it - and they’re both nuclear countries. I got it stopped."

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Trump hosted Munir after he called for the president to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for preventing a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.

NO MEDIATION

Trump had said last month that the neighbours agreed to a ceasefire after talks mediated by the U.S., and that the hostilities ended when he urged the countries to focus on trade instead of war.

However, Modi told Trump in their call on Tuesday that the ceasefire was achieved through talks between the Indian and Pakistani militaries and not U.S. mediation, India’s most senior diplomat, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, said in a statement.

Pakistan has thanked Washington for playing a mediating role, however, while India has repeatedly denied any third-party mediation. Tuesday’s phone call between Modi and Trump was the two leaders’ first direct exchange since the May 7-10 conflict.

"PM Modi told President Trump clearly that during this period, there was no talk at any stage on subjects like India-U.S. trade deal or U.S. mediation between India and Pakistan," Misri said.

"Talks for ceasing military action happened directly between India and Pakistan through existing military channels, and on the insistence of Pakistan. Prime Minister Modi emphasised that India has not accepted mediation in the past and will never do."

Misri said Modi and Trump had been due to meet on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada but Trump left a day early due to the Middle East situation.

Trump asked Modi if he could stop by the U.S. on his return from Canada, Misri said, but the Indian leader expressed his inability to do so due to a pre-decided schedule.

The heaviest fighting in decades between India and Pakistan was sparked by an April 22 attack in Indian Kashmir that killed 26 people. New Delhi blamed "terrorists" backed by Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denies.

Pakistan has previously said the ceasefire happened after its military returned a call the Indian military initiated.

On May 7, Indian jets bombed what New Delhi called "terrorist infrastructure" sites across the border, triggering tit-for-tat strikes spread over four days in which both sides used fighter jets, missiles, drones and artillery.

Michael Kugelman, of the Asia Pacific Foundation think tank, said India-U.S. ties, which have thrived in recent years, could suffer if Trump continued to make remarks about a U.S. role in the ceasefire and offered U.S. mediation on Kashmir, a Himalayan territory India and Pakistan both claim.

"For Delhi, it all boils down to an age-old question: How much can it tolerate U.S.-Pakistan cooperation without having it spoil U.S.-India relations — a partnership that’s thrived in recent years despite continued U.S.-Pakistan links," he said.

Thawing of relations between Pakistan and US raises eyebrows in India (The Guardian)

The Guardian [6/19/2025 6:24 PM, Penelope MacRae, 83003K]
After years in the diplomatic deep freeze, US-Pakistan ties appear to be quickly thawing, with Donald Trump’s effusive welcome for Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, signalling a possible major reset.

Once snubbed so badly that former prime minister Imran Khan had to board an ordinary airport shuttle after arriving in the US rather than being whisked off in a limousine, Pakistan is now enjoying top-level access in Washington, including a White House lunch for Munir on Wednesday and meetings with top national security officials.

Trump’s perceived friendliness with Munir, coupled with what India considers to be a glossing over of Pakistan’s record on terrorism, has raised Indian eyebrows, especially amid sensitive trade negotiations with the US.

In a phone call with Trump on Tuesday, the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, strongly rejected the US president’s repeated claims that he had personally brokered peace in the four-day conflict between India and Pakistan in May.

The next day, while calling Modi a "fantastic man", Trump described Munir as "extremely influential" in halting the brief but intense war. "I love Pakistan," Trump said, before repeating: "I stopped the war between Pakistan and India.".

In the phone call, Modi made it "absolutely clear", said India’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, that hostilities ceased only after Pakistan requested a ceasefire, and that no third-party mediation took place. "India has not accepted mediation in the past and never will," Misri said.

Adding to the confusion, a White House press officer said Munir had been invited after suggesting Trump be nominated for the Nobel peace prize for ending the conflict, which followed a terror attack that killed 26 mainly Hindu holidaymakers in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Munir’s red-carpet treatment in Washington and high praise from US Central Command hint at a strategic recalibration.

Gen Michael E Kurilla, the head of Central Command, recently called Pakistan a "phenomenal" counter-terrorism partner, citing Islamabad’s role in helping to capture the alleged Islamic State Khorasan Province planner behind the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing at Kabul airport, an attack that killed 13 US troops and more than 170 Afghan civilians.

Munir’s five-day US tour includes meetings at the Pentagon, the state department, and Central Command headquarters in Florida. Such access is extraordinary for a Pakistani general.

"Senior US officials often meet with Pakistani generals. But they don’t get entertained at the White House," noted Michael Kugelman, a Washington-based south Asia analyst. "Ayub Khan and Zia ul-Haq were exceptions but they came as heads of state.".

The shift in tone is stark. India has long positioned itself as the more reliable partner for the US as the world’s largest democracy, a bulwark against China, and a hub for expanding trade and intelligence-sharing. Pakistan, by contrast, has been dogged by accusations of sheltering terrorists and undermining civilian rule.

Just a few years ago, Trump himself accused Pakistan of offering "nothing but lies and deceit". Joe Biden later called it "one of the most dangerous nations in the world".

Indian officials continue to point to Pakistan’s links to major terror attacks, including on its parliament in 2001 and in Mumbai in 2008. Against that backdrop, Washington’s embrace of Munir strikes a jarring note in Delhi, where critics say the US is engaging with the same military establishment long accused of enabling cross-border militancy.

Analysts say the pivot may be driven by more than just strategic cooperation. For Trump, it could be personal. "He has a thing for strongmen," said one US analyst.

"He sees something in Munir – the mystique, the military credentials, the aura of control. Trump responds to dominance, and Munir projects it.".

That may help to explain why Munir was granted access usually reserved for heads of state. "He probably relished the opportunity to size Munir up," Kugelman said. "Trump knows that in Pakistan it’s the army chief who really runs the show.".

But Munir’s visit is taking place as the Middle East is in turmoil, with Israel striking Iranian targets and Iran firing missiles in retaliation. The US may be hoping that Pakistan, one of the few countries with diplomatic ties to Tehran, could play a role in de-escalation.

There’s also a more delicate calculation, with Israel pushing the US to join its military campaign against Iran, which shares a 900km border with Pakistan. That geography puts Islamabad in a pivotal position. Some analysts believe the US may be probing whether Munir would allow surveillance flights or logistical cooperation.

But Pakistan’s room for manoeuvre is limited, with public opinion strongly pro-Iran. "Even privately, Pakistan’s military would likely balk at the risks," Kugelman said. "They can’t afford to be dragged into this. The backlash would be enormous.".

For Indian officials, Munir’s reception has revived old memories of the US tendency to tilt towards Pakistan at critical junctures, such as in the cold war moments or post-9/11. But this time, analysts say, the reset may also involve commercial opportunity.

Pakistan is actively courting US investment in two of the most volatile and potentially lucrative global commerce sectors: cryptocurrency and critical minerals.

"The Trump-Munir meeting shouldn’t be seen only through the lens of the Israel-Iran war," Kugelman said. "There’s been US-Pakistan engagement on crypto, minerals and counter-terrorism, and Trump takes a deep personal interest in all of these.".

He added: "This is classic Trump: ‘What can you do for me? What can I get out of this?’".

Trump embraces Pakistan: ‘Tactical romance’ or a new ‘inner circle’? (Al Jazeera)

Al Jazeera [6/19/2025 5:49 AM, Abid Hussain, 47007K]
In his first address to a joint session of Congress on March 4 this year, after becoming United States president for a second time, Donald Trump made a striking revelation.

He referred to the deadly Abbey Gate bombing at Kabul airport in August 2021 – which occurred as thousands of Afghans tried to flee following the Taliban takeover – and said the alleged perpetrator had been apprehended.

The country he credited with the arrest: Pakistan. "I want to thank especially the government of Pakistan for helping arrest this monster," Trump declared.

A little more than three months later, Trump hosted Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir for lunch at the White House on Wednesday — the first time a US president has hosted a military chief from Pakistan who isn’t also the country’s head of state. Munir is on a five-day trip to the US.

For a country that Trump had, just seven years earlier, accused of giving the US "nothing but lies and deceit" and safe havens to terrorists – and one that his immediate predecessor Joe Biden called "one of the most dangerous nations" – this marks a dramatic shift.

It’s a reset that experts say has been in the making for weeks, under Trump’s second administration, and that was solidified by the brief but intense military confrontation between India and Pakistan in May, during which the US tried to mediate a ceasefire.

Some analysts warn that the evolving relationship should be viewed as a product of Trump’s personal position, rather than institutional policy.

"We are dealing with an administration which changes its tune by the hour. There is no process here," Marvin Weinbaum, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute (MEI), told Al Jazeera.

"One minute the US has no interest, and the next minute priorities change rapidly. You’re dealing with an administration that is mercurial and personalised, and you don’t associate that with traditional US foreign policy," he added.

However, others point out that even the optics of Trump hosting Munir are significant.

"Trump’s lunch invite to Pakistan’s army chief isn’t just protocol-breaking, it’s protocol-redefining," said Raza Ahmad Rumi, a distinguished lecturer at the City University of New York (CUNY). "It signals, quite visibly, that Pakistan is not just on Washington’s radar, it’s in the inner circle, at least for now.".

Reset amid regional crises

The meeting between Trump and Munir came amid heightened tensions in the Middle East, where Israel has been conducting strikes inside Iranian cities since June 13. Iran has retaliated with missile attacks of its own on Israel.

The Israeli offensive – targeting Iranian generals, missile bases, nuclear facilities and scientists – has killed more than 200 people. Iran’s missile and drone attacks on Israel over the past six days have killed about 20 people.

The Benjamin Netanyahu-led Israeli government has been urging the US to join the offensive against Iran, which shares a 900-kilometre-long (559-mile) border with Pakistan.

Speaking to the media in the Oval Office after the lunch with Munir on Wednesday, Trump noted that the Pakistanis "know Iran very well, better than most," but added that they are "not happy".

According to Trump, however, the main reason for meeting Munir was to thank him for his role in defusing the May conflict between Pakistan and India, a confrontation that brought the region, home to more than 1.6 billion people, to the brink of nuclear war.

"The reason I had him here was that I wanted to thank him for not going into the war [with India]. And I want to thank PM [Narendra] Modi as well, who just left a few days ago. We’re working on a trade deal with India and Pakistan," said Trump, who is known to enjoy a warm relationship with Indian leader Modi.

"These two very smart people decided not to keep going with a war that could have been a nuclear war. Pakistan and India are two big nuclear powers. I was honoured to meet him today," he added, referring to Munir.

The crisis had begun after an April attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 Indian civilians. India blamed Pakistan, which denied the charge and called for a "credible, independent, transparent" investigation.

On May 7, India launched strikes inside Pakistani and Pakistan-administered Kashmir territories. Pakistan responded via its air force, claiming to have downed at least six Indian jets. India confirmed losses but did not specify numbers.

The conflict escalated as both sides exchanged drones for three days and eventually launched missiles at military targets on May 10. It ended only after intense backchannel diplomacy, particularly involving the US, led to a ceasefire.

Trump reiterated his role on Wednesday. "I stopped the war between Pakistan and India. This man [Munir] was extremely influential in stopping it from the Pakistan side, Modi from the India side, and others," he said.

While Pakistan has acknowledged the US role, India insists the ceasefire resulted solely from bilateral dialogue. Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri stated on Tuesday that Indian PM Modi had spoken to Trump by phone to underscore New Delhi’s view that there was no US-led mediation between India and Pakistan.

Arif Ansar, chief strategist at Washington-based advisory firm PoliTact, said Pakistan’s military performance during the confrontation prompted Trump’s engagement.

"It demonstrated that despite its political and economic challenges, the country can outmanoeuvre a much bigger adversary," Ansar told Al Jazeera. "This has led President Trump to engage with Pakistan’s traditional power centres based on core strategic interests.".

“Opportunity to reassert relevance”

That engagement has a long history.

Pakistan’s relationship with the US dates back to its 1947 independence, after which it aligned with Washington during the Cold War. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan supported US objectives there, and the two collaborated closely to support the mujahideen that eventually forced Moscow to pull out its troops.

Subsequently, Pakistan also backed the post-9/11 US "war on terror".

However, over the years, many within the US strategic community also started questioning Pakistan’s credibility as a reliable security partner, especially after 9/11 architect Osama bin Laden was found in Abbottabad, close to Rawalpindi, home to Pakistan’s military headquarters in 2011.

Since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, the strategic partnership has waned further. Pakistan has increasingly turned towards China for economic, military and technological support.

But Weinbaum said that since Trump returned to office, Pakistan has been getting respect that was lacking under the previous Biden administration.

Trump wanted "counterterrorism assistance," Weinbaum said – and seemingly got it.

On June 10, General Michael E Kurilla, chief of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), detailed how that cooperation led to the capture of the suspected Abbey Gate bomber.

"They [Pakistan] are in an active counterterrorism fight right now, and they have been a phenomenal partner in the counterterrorism world," Kurilla said, in a testimony before the House Armed Services Committee in Washington, DC.

According to Kurilla, who also oversees the US military’s Middle East operations including Iran, this progress, including the arrest of the Abbey Gate bombing suspect, was made possible due to direct coordination with Pakistan’s army chief. "Field Marshal Asim Munir called me to tell me they had captured one of the Daesh-K [ISKP or ISIS-K] individuals," he said.

As the icing on the cake for the bilateral relationship, Weinbaum suggested, Pakistan has thrown in "more goodies, such as a trade deal with no tariffs, offering rare earth minerals, and crypto". Weinbaum previously served as an analyst for Pakistan and Afghanistan in the US State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

Rare earth minerals, critical for industries like defence, robotics and electronics, are among Pakistan’s assets now being offered to foreign investors, including the US and Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan has also recently formed a crypto council and held talks with US officials to attract investment and partnerships.

Rumi called the Munir-Trump meeting "historic".

"The US wants Pakistan’s help in de-risking regional volatility without offering much in return. For Munir, it’s an opportunity to reassert relevance and perhaps negotiate manoeuvring space at home," he said.

Transactional ties and democratic costs

Historically, Pakistan’s ties with the US have been largely transactional, particularly in the security sphere. US aid and investment often followed Pakistan’s alignment with US strategic goals, helping build its infrastructure and military.

But the relationship has also been marked by distrust, with US administrations accusing Pakistan of double-dealing, while Pakistan claims the US has failed to respect the sacrifices it has made while siding with them.

Whether this latest engagement proves to be another fleeting phase or a more durable alignment remains to be seen, say experts.

Rumi, the New York-based academic, said the US has traditionally engaged Pakistan when it needed to, and retreated when it could.

"Unless this relationship is institutionalised, beyond the security lens with which it is viewed, it’s another tactical romance. And like past dalliances, it could fade once strategic goals are met or regimes change," he said.

Ansar added that Pakistan again stands on the brink of a major strategic choice amid the global power shift.

"Much depends on whether it leans toward China or the US. That decision is also tied to the evolving Israel-Palestine conflict and the role of Iran," he said.

But Weinbaum, the former State Department official, described the reset in ties as temporary, as "nothing is permanent in this administration".

"If Pakistan does play some role in the Iran crisis, they have could have more substantial meaning to these ties. But it needs to be prepared that there is nothing settled with this administration. It can change on a dime, at any hour," he said.

Power behind the scenes

The military remains Pakistan’s most powerful institution, exerting enormous influence over politics and society.

It has ruled directly for more than three decades, and the current government, elected in a controversial vote last year, is widely seen as secondary to the military leadership under Munir.

This is consistent with historical precedent. Pakistan’s first military ruler, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, had close ties with the US in the 1960s. Subsequent military rulers, including General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s and General Pervez Musharraf in the 2000s, also maintained strong US relations. All three were hosted by US presidents at the White House – but only after they became heads of state.

Munir, now only the second Pakistani to hold the rank of field marshal after Khan, reinforces the perception that Pakistan’s real power remains with the military, despite the presence of a civilian government, say experts.

Still, CUNY’s Rumi said it was important not to "confuse symbolism with transformation".

"This [Trump-Munir] meeting validates the enduring military-to-military track in US-Pakistan [ties], but it also bypasses the civilian setup, which should worry anyone rooting for democratic consolidation. If this is the "reset," it’s one where khaki once again trumps ballot," he cautioned, referring to the colour of the military’s uniform.

Ansar from PoliTact concurred, saying that the meeting reflects adversely on the civil-military balance in Pakistan, as it showed who remains the "real power bearer" in Pakistan.

"In the long run, these dealings in the past have led to tremendous political, economic and security-related repercussions for the nation [Pakistan]," he said.

"But additionally, it has promoted a norm that critical decisions impacting the nation must be made in private without discussion, consensus or public ownership. This results in increased societal and political disillusionment regarding the future of the country.".

Amid US-Pakistan thaw, two key challenges: Iran and China (Al Jazeera)

Al Jazeera [6/20/2025 12:00 AM, Abid Hussain, 17M]
Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has held an unprecedented one-on-one meeting with United States President Donald Trump at the White House, where the two leaders spoke for more than two hours, according to the Pakistani military.

In a statement issued on Thursday by Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the Pakistani military’s media wing, the meeting, originally scheduled for one hour, was held in the Cabinet Room over lunch and then continued in the Oval Office.

After Wednesday’s meeting, the ISPR said, Munir expressed “deep appreciation” for Trump’s efforts in facilitating a ceasefire between India and Pakistan after a four-day conflict in May between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. According to the ISPR, Trump welcomed Pakistan’s cooperation against “terrorism”.

While the White House did not release any statement on the meeting, which was held behind closed doors and without news media photo opportunities, Trump spoke to reporters briefly after his talks with Munir. He thanked the army chief and said he was “honoured to meet him”.

Yet amid the bonhomie and the promise of a sharp uptick in relations after years of tension between Washington and Islamabad, Trump also referred to the ongoing military conflict between Israel and Iran, which the US president has said his country might join.

The Pakistanis, Trump said, “know Iran very well, better than most”, adding that they are “not happy”.

For Pakistan, analysts said, that comment underscored how the reset in ties with the US that Islamabad desperately seeks will be tested by two key challenges. Iran and the current crisis with Israel will force Pakistan into a diplomatic balancing act, they said. And Islamabad’s close relations with China could similarly pull Pakistan in conflicting directions.

What did Trump and Munir talk about?

According to the ISPR, Munir spoke to Trump about a range of areas where the two nations could strengthen cooperation, including “economic development, mines and minerals, artificial intelligence, energy, cryptocurrency, and emerging technologies”.

But the Pakistani military conceded that the two leaders also held “detailed discussions” on the escalating tensions between Iran and Israel with both Munir and Trump – according to Islamabad – emphasising the need for a peaceful resolution.

Munir was accompanied by Pakistan’s national security adviser, Lieutenant General Asim Malik, who also heads the country’s premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

On the American side, Trump was joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the president’s top negotiator in the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.

Marvin Weinbaum, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute (MEI), said the lack of a media presence during the lunch could be interpreted as suggesting that “the nature of the conversation was such that neither party wanted photo opportunities”.

Weinbaum told Al Jazeera that neither side likely wanted to reveal much about “what was discussed, though my read is it was perhaps the US wanting to know about Pakistan’s role on what follows in Iran during this ongoing situation”.

Later on Wednesday evening, Munir attended a dinner hosted by the Pakistani embassy with nearly three dozen figures from think tanks, policy institutions and diplomatic circles. Al Jazeera spoke to several participants, who all requested anonymity to discuss what Munir said at the dinner.

One participant said Munir did not divulge specifics from his meeting with Trump, but he remarked that the conversation was “fantastic and could not have gone any better”.

Munir added, according to this person, that Pakistan’s relations with the previous administration of President Joe Biden had been “among the worst” historically.

Another attendee told Al Jazeera that Munir said the US “knows what it needs to do regarding Iran” and reiterated that Pakistan’s view is that “every conflict is resolvable through dialogue and diplomacy”.

‘Significant upswing’

For the moment, experts said, the meeting represents a major gain for Pakistan in its bid to improve ties with the US.

Pakistan has been a close US ally since gaining independence in 1947. They worked closely together in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion in 1979 and then again after the US invasion of Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks.

While the US has provided more than $30bn in aid in the last two decades to Pakistan, it has repeatedly accused Islamabad of “duplicity” and of not being a reliable security partner.

Pakistan, in turn, has argued that Washington constantly demands it “do more” without fully acknowledging the losses and instability Pakistan has suffered due to regional violence.

Elizabeth Threlkeld, director of the South Asia Program at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC, said Munir’s visit marks a “significant upswing” in US-Pakistan ties under the Trump administration.

“Given President Trump’s central role in shaping foreign policy and his preference for personal relationships, this visit has allowed Field Marshal Munir to solidify a rapport built during the recent crisis,” she told Al Jazeera.

Sahar Khan, a Washington, DC-based security policy expert, said that while the meeting was significant, it doesn’t mean the two countries are “now friends”. However, it does indicate a “thaw in the relationship”.

She added that although Trump is unpredictable, Pakistan should consider striking a deal with him to prevent unrealistic demands regarding regional issues.

“For now, Munir’s message to the Trump administration is, take the time to understand Pakistan and stop viewing it through the lens of India, China or Afghanistan,” she said.

Making that message stick, though, won’t be easy, analysts said.

China, the real strategic dilemma

China remains Pakistan’s most critical partner, with whom it enjoys deep economic, strategic and military ties. But simultaneously, over the past three decades, Beijing’s rise as a global superpower has made it Washington’s principal rival.

Muhammad Faisal, a South Asia security researcher at the University of Technology in Sydney, said managing ties with both powers will test Islamabad’s commitment to a policy of “no-camp politics”.

China has invested $62bn in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a large infrastructure project connecting western China to the Arabian Sea via Pakistan.

On the military front, Pakistan procures more than 80 percent of its weaponry from China, and some of those products, particularly Chinese jets and missiles, showcased their worth in the recent conflict with India.

“In the long run, both [China and the US] are crucial for Pakistan in their own right,” Faisal told Al Jazeera. And while the US and China might each want Islamabad on their side, the fact that Pakistan is sought after by both has its own advantage.

It “gives Islamabad considerable diplomatic space to expand cooperation with both Beijing and Washington”, he said.

The Iran challenge

Iran, currently under an intense Israeli assault that has targeted key infrastructure and senior military and nuclear figures, presents another sensitive challenge for Pakistan.

Analysts argued that Pakistan’s proximity and ties to Tehran position it as a potential mediator between the US and Iran.

“It is in Pakistan’s interest to play a mediating role. It cannot afford another adversary on its western border, given its internal challenges,” Khan said.

Last month, Munir travelled to Iran along with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. During the visit, he met Major General Mohammad Bagheri, chief of General Staff of the Iranian military. In the first wave of strikes by Israel on Friday, Bagheri was one of the several military officials who were killed.

Since the Israeli strikes began, Pakistan has strongly defended Iran’s right to self-defence, describing the Israeli strikes as violations of Iran’s territorial sovereignty and calling them “blatant provocations”.

Home to nearly 250 million people, Pakistan has a significant Shia minority – between 15 percent and 20 percent of the population – who look to Iran for religious leadership.

Faisal noted that these demographic and geographic realities would constrain Pakistan’s public support for any US military intervention.

“Islamabad can continue to call for diplomacy and cessation of hostilities to contain the conflict. As a neighbour, instability in Iran isn’t in Pakistan’s interest,” he said.

At the same time, Faisal added, “a spike in sectarian tensions [in Pakistan] can test internal security. Thus, Islamabad will be wary of pro-American public posturing.”

Pakistan fears militants will thrive on restive border if Iran destabilised (Reuters)

Reuters [6/19/2025 10:06 AM, Saeed Shah, 51390K]
Separatist and jihadist militants on the Pakistan-Iran border could take advantage of any collapse of authority in Iran, fears that Pakistan’s army chief pressed in a meeting this week with the U.S. President Donald Trump.

Anti-Iranian and anti-Pakistan outfits operate on both sides of the 560-mile (900km) long border. As Israel bombs Iran’s nuclear program, its officials have repeatedly indicated that they are seeking to destabilize the Iranian government or see it toppled.

As well as worrying about chaos spilling over from Iran, Pakistan is concerned about the precedent set by Israel of attacking the nuclear installations of another country. Nuclear-armed rivals Pakistan and India fought a four-day conflict in May.

Following a Wednesday lunch at the White House with Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, Trump said: "They’re not happy about anything", referring to Pakistan’s views on the Israel-Iran conflict.

Pakistan’s military said on Thursday that the two had discussed Iran,"with both leaders emphasizing the importance of resolution of the conflict".

Pakistan has condemned Israel’s attack on Iran as a violation of international law.

"This is for us a very serious issue what is happening in our brotherly country of Iran," Shafqat Ali Khan, spokesman for Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Thursday. "It imperils the entire regional security structures, it impacts us deeply.".

Some of the militant groups on the border have welcomed the upheaval.

Jaish al-Adl (JaA), an Iranian jihadist group formed from ethnic Baluch and Sunni Muslim minorities and which operates from Pakistan, said Israel’s conflict with Iran was a great opportunity.

"Jaish al-Adl extends the hand of brotherhood and friendship to all the people of Iran and calls on all people, especially the people of Baluchistan, as well as the armed forces, to join the ranks of the Resistance," the group said in a statement on June 13.

Conversely, Pakistan fears that separatist militants from its own Baluch minority, which are based in Iran, will also seek to step up attacks.

"There’s a fear of ungoverned spaces, which would be fertile ground for terrorist groups," said Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington.

Pakistan has unstable borders with Taliban-run Afghanistan and arch-rival India. It does not want to add another volatile frontier on its long border with Iran.

The Iran-Pakistan border region is populated with ethnic Baluch, a minority in both countries who have long complained about discrimination and launched separatist movements. On Pakistan’s side, the region is a province called Balochistan and in Iran it is Sistan-Baluchistan.

Until Israel’s bombing of Iran, Tehran was closer to Pakistan’s arch-rival India. Pakistan and Iran had even traded air strikes last year, accusing each other of harboring Baluch militants. But the attack on Iran has upended alliances, as India has not condemned Israel’s bombing campaign.

China has also said that it is deeply concerned about the security situation in Balochistan, with the area being a focus of Beijing’s multi-billion dollar infrastructure investment program in Pakistan, centred on the new Chinese-run port of Gwadar. Baluch militant groups in Pakistan have previously targeted Chinese personnel and projects.

On Iranian side of the border, Tehran has at different times accused Pakistan, Gulf nations, Israel and the United States of backing the anti-Iran Baluch groups.

Simbal Khan, an analyst based in Islamabad, said the different Baluch groups could morph into a "greater Baluchistan" movement which seeks to carve out a new nation from the Baluch areas of Pakistan and Iran.

"They’re all going to fight together if this blows up," said Khan.

Quietly, Pakistan Wages a Deadly Drone Campaign Inside Its Own Borders (New York Times)

New York Times [6/19/2025 4:14 PM, Zia ur-Rehman, 931K]
In the brief but pitched military clash between Pakistan and India last month, the skies swarmed with waves of cutting-edge drones, signaling a shift from traditional border skirmishes to high-tech showdowns.

But for years, a far more covert and deadly drone campaign has been playing out within Pakistan’s own borders.

As the country’s internal security deteriorates amid rising Islamist militancy and a bloody separatist insurgency, Pakistani officials have increasingly turned to drones to monitor and strike militants, especially those operating in remote areas near Afghanistan.

The Pakistani government has not officially acknowledged the role of drones in its counterinsurgency playbook, in part because the issue is politically sensitive.

For years, the U.S. government conducted drone strikes inside Pakistan that targeted Al Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban and affiliated groups but also killed significant numbers of civilians. While Pakistan heavily criticized the Americans over the attacks, it has now adopted their tactic.

And as with the U.S. strikes, civilian deaths have been repeatedly reported during Pakistan’s current campaign. Although Pakistani security officials have privately insisted that drone operations have become significantly more effective and precise, the collateral damage reported in some attacks risks radicalizing more Pakistanis against the government.

Last month, a weeklong protest was organized in North Waziristan, in the country’s northwest, after four children were killed in a strike on a home. Residents placed the victims’ bodies on a main road to demand justice. Officials blamed the Pakistani Taliban for the attack, but the political opposition condemned it as a consequence of what it called the government’s flawed security strategy.

Pakistani security officials have begun to reveal more information about drone strikes to journalists and to online supporters in an effort to rebut criticism and deflect the militants’ propaganda efforts.

A recent presentation to a group of academics and reporters featured drone video showing armed men trying to breach a barbed-wire perimeter under the cover of night. The footage, taken using thermal and low-light imaging, concludes with what appeared to be a precision strike. Officials asserted that the video, recorded in late 2024, showed Pakistani Taliban militants crossing the border from Afghanistan to launch attacks inside Pakistan.

Other videos that appear to show drone strikes targeting militants have circulated on social media, many of them posted by pro-military accounts. Though their authenticity remains unverified, drone activity has been reported by residents in the areas where the footage was recorded.

One video is said to show a drone strike targeting Taliban-affiliated militants in a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, which borders Afghanistan in northwestern Pakistan. Another video shows quadcopters — small four-rotor drones — providing real-time intelligence to ground troops during a raid in a bordering district.

The government has backed this digital campaign in an attempt to counter militant groups as they have frequently claimed to have carried out drone strikes on military personnel and pro-government militias. Such claims remain unverified because of the lack of independent access to Pakistan’s conflict zones.

The Pakistani government faces one of the most severe militant threats in the world. A global terrorism index published by the Institute for Economics and Peace, an international think tank, ranks Pakistan as the country second most affected by terrorism, after Burkina Faso in Africa.

The index lists the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or T.T.P., and the Baloch Liberation Army, a Pakistani separatist group, among the 10 deadliest terrorist organizations globally.

Both militant groups have indirectly acknowledged the impact of Pakistan’s drone warfare.

Last month, the T.T.P. said that two of its fighters had been injured in a drone strike; the group then executed a civilian it accused of spying for the military. The T.T.P. claimed that the person had used his mobile phone to guide the drone.

In late April, the group said that three militants had been killed in a drone attack on its hide-out in the Mianwali district of Punjab Province. Days earlier, five militants were reported killed in drone strikes in a district bordering Afghanistan during a clash with security forces.

The Baloch Liberation Army recently announced that it had killed a man in Panjgur, a district of Balochistan Province bordering Iran, accusing him of assisting the military in drone operations. The group’s affiliated media accounts claimed that intelligence provided by the person had resulted in the deaths of at least 40 militants in drone strikes.

Pakistan is among a handful of countries that have used drones against militants within their own borders, including Iraq, Nigeria and Turkey. Transparency is often limited, and governments can find themselves on uncertain legal and ethical ground as they target their own citizens in some cases.

In Pakistan, civilian deaths have left residents grasping for answers.

Late last month, at least 20 people were injured in a suspected drone strike on a crowd watching a volleyball match in Lower South Waziristan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa bordering Afghanistan.

“We were watching the match with great enthusiasm when strikes came from the sky,” said an eyewitness, Haroon Gul. “It caused chaos and injuries.”

The local authorities said it was unclear who had carried out the attack. The region has long been dominated by Pakistani Taliban factions, which have also increasingly used low-cost, commercially available quadcopter drones for attacks on security forces, said Iftikhar Firdous, founder of The Khorasan Diary, which tracks regional security issues.

The strike on a home in neighboring North Waziristan that killed four children happened less than two weeks before the volleyball attack.

“The family was having breakfast when the drone appeared,” said Qari Shahidullah, a relative. “It hovered above the house before dropping the bomb.”

In March, a drone strike in Mardan, another district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killed 10 people. The central government said the dead were militants. But the provincial government said they were innocent shepherds and paid a total of $17,000 to their families.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent watchdog, has urged a transparent investigation into the reports of civilian deaths and has called on the government to prioritize the protection of civilians.

The ambiguity surrounding civilian deaths has not only eroded public trust but also intensified tensions between the military-backed government and the political party led by Imran Khan, the jailed former prime minister. Last month, lawmakers from his party, which holds power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, claimed they had been blocked from raising concerns in Parliament about the government’s drone policy. They took to the streets in protest.

“Drone attacks do not distinguish between innocent civilians and terrorists,” Meena Khan Afridi, a government minister in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said at a rally in Peshawar, the provincial capital. “We will not allow them to continue.”

Pakistan’s former tribal region along the Afghan border was once the focal point of a prolonged U.S. drone campaign aimed at eliminating terrorist leaders. The first known U.S. strike took place on June 18, 2004, and killed Nek Muhammad, a prominent Taliban commander.

According to the New America Foundation, the George W. Bush administration authorized 48 drone strikes inside Pakistan. Under President Barack Obama, the number surged to 353. The final recorded U.S. drone strike of his term, on May 21, 2016, killed Mullah Akhtar Mansour, the chief of the Afghan Taliban.

President Trump ordered 13 strikes in Pakistan during his first year in office. No strikes have been documented since mid-2018.

After more than two decades of drone strikes on militant groups, residents of Pakistan’s border regions remain deeply skeptical about their effectiveness and say that the underlying causes of militancy remain unaddressed.

“Drones have come and gone — first the Americans, now our own government and the militants,” said Gul Zameen Dawar, a shopkeeper in North Waziristan. “But what has really changed? The militants are still here, and so is the fear and insecurity.”

Homeland insecurity: Expelled Afghans seek swift return to Pakistan (Agence France-Presse)

Agence France-Presse [6/19/2025 12:22 AM, Lehaz Ali, 58908K]
Pakistan says it has expelled more than a million Afghans in the past two years, yet many have quickly attempted to return -- preferring to take their chances dodging the law than struggle for existence in a homeland some had never even seen before.

"Going back there would be sentencing my family to death," said Hayatullah, a 46-year-old Afghan deported via the Torkham border crossing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in early 2024.

Since April and a renewed deportation drive, some 200,000 Afghans have spilled over the two main border crossings from Pakistan, entering on trucks loaded with hastily packed belongings.

But they carry little hope of starting over in the impoverished country, where girls are banned from school after primary level.

Hayatullah, a pseudonym, returned to Pakistan a month after being deported, travelling around 800 kilometres (500 miles) south to the Chaman border crossing in Balochistan, because for him, life in Afghanistan "had come to a standstill".

He paid a bribe to cross the Chaman frontier, "like all the day labourers who regularly travel across the border to work on the other side".

His wife and three children -- including daughters, aged 16 and 18, who would be denied education in Afghanistan -- had managed to avoid arrest and deportation.

Hayatullah moved the family to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and a region mostly populated by Pashtuns -- the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan.

"Compared to Islamabad, the police here don’t harass us as much," he said.

An Afghan refugee sitting on a truck waves the old Afghan national flag as he heads towards the border from Pakistan in Peshawar.

The only province governed by the opposition party of former Prime Minister Imran Khan -- who is now in prison and in open conflict with the federal government -- Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is considered a refuge of relative security for Afghans.

Samad Khan, a 38-year-old Afghan who also spoke using a pseudonym, also chose to relocate his family to Peshawar.

Born in eastern Pakistan’s Lahore city, he set foot in Afghanistan for the first time on April 22 -- the day he was deported.

"We have no relatives in Afghanistan, and there’s no sign of life. There’s no work, no income, and the Taliban are extremely strict," he said.

At first, he tried to find work in a country where 85 percent of the population lives on less than one dollar a day, but after a few weeks he instead found a way back to Pakistan.

"I paid 50,000 rupees (around $180) to an Afghan truck driver," he said, using one of his Pakistani employees’ ID cards to cross the border.

He rushed back to Lahore to bundle his belongings and wife and two children -- who had been left behind -- into a vehicle, and moved to Peshawar.

"I started a second-hand shoe business with the support of a friend. The police here don’t harass us like they do in Lahore, and the overall environment is much better," he told AFP.

- ‘Challenging’ reintegration -

It’s hard to say how many Afghans have returned, as data is scarce.

A truck filled with Afghan refugees and loaded with their belongings waits to depart for Afghanistan at a holding centre near the Chaman border crossing in April.

Government sources, eager to blame the country’s problems on supporters of Khan, claim that hundreds of thousands of Afghans are already back and settled in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa -- figures that cannot be independently verified.

Migrant rights defenders in Pakistan say they’ve heard of such returns, but insist the numbers are limited.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) told AFP that "some Afghans who were returned have subsequently chosen to remigrate to Pakistan".

"When individuals return to areas with limited access to basic services and livelihood opportunities, reintegration can be challenging," said Avand Azeez Agha, communications officer for the UN agency in Kabul.

They might move on again, he said, "as people seek sustainable opportunities".

Iran’s Nuclear Pursuit and the Pakistani Example (Wall Street Journal – opinion)

Wall Street Journal [6/188/2025 12:11 PM, Sadanand Dhume, 910K]
If Israel succeeds in destroying Iran’s nuclear program, it would do the world a favor. Those who argue that Israel should live with a nuclear Iran should look no further than India’s bitter experience with its nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan. Nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran’s revolutionary Islamist regime would be even more dangerous.

Twice before—Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007—Israel has prevented belligerent Middle Eastern dictatorships from developing nuclear weapons that would threaten the Jewish state’s existence and destabilize the region.

Pakistan is believed to have built the so-called Islamic bomb by the late 1980s. The country tested it in 1998. Experts estimate that Pakistan has between 170 to 180 warheads—deliverable by land, sea or air—in its nuclear arsenal. But apart from excitable Pakistanis on social media worried that Israel may target their country next, no one seriously talks about rolling back Islamabad’s weapons program.

How did Pakistan get the bomb? Through a combination of theft, charity and clever diplomacy. In the 1970s, Pakistani metallurgist Abdul Qadeer Khan stole centrifuge designs from the nuclear enrichment facility at which he worked in the Netherlands. He took the designs to Pakistan, where he played a central role in its uranium-enrichment program. In the 1980s, China, Pakistan’s close ally, provided Islamabad with a tested nuclear bomb blueprint.

Though U.S. intelligence agencies knew Pakistan was pursuing the bomb, they chose to look the other way. Washington needed Islamabad’s help arming the mujahedeen in Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s. The conflict between “American nonproliferation interests” and “broader strategic interests” prevented the U.S. from blocking Islamabad’s quest for the bomb, Ankit Panda, a nuclear-weapons researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says in a phone interview.

Israel recognized the danger and offered India a solution. In the 2007 book “Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons,” journalists Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark recount plans for a joint operation with India to take out Pakistan’s main nuclear plant in the early 1980s. Israel had bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in a daring mission in 1981, but Pakistan was too far for Israeli warplanes to reach. The proposal, according to Mr. Levy and Ms. Scott-Clark, involved Israeli planes taking off from an Indian air base close to the border with Pakistan. But the planned attack never happened.

Allowing Pakistan to acquire nuclear weapons was arguably India’s worst national-security blunder since independence in 1947. For decades, Mr. Panda says, Indians have been forced to tolerate “death by a thousand cuts” by dealing with Islamabad’s support for terrorist groups. Retaliating could mean provoking a nuclear enemy.

The University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database estimates that between 1990 and 2020, Islamist terrorists, many of whom were backed by Pakistan, killed more than 4,000 people in India.

Nuclear Pakistan has also been a problem for the West. Three of the four terrorists responsible for the 2005 London bombings that killed 52 people had roots in Pakistan. The country’s support for jihadism has made it a haven for Islamic militants around the world. In 2011 the U.S. discovered that Osama bin Laden was hiding less than a mile from Pakistan’s leading military academy. And Khan, father of the Pakistani bomb, supplied nuclear know-how and parts to rogue states including Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons program may be too far along to be easily ended, but U.S. officials still worry about it. The physical proximity of jihadist groups to fissile material raises fears that they may acquire enough enriched uranium to set off a so-called dirty bomb—radioactive material spread by conventional explosives.

There are also plenty of religious zealots in the Pakistani military, and the risk of one having his finger on the nuclear button one day is all too real. Last year the Biden administration went public with its concern that Pakistan was developing a long-range ballistic missile to target the U.S.

A nuclear-armed Iran would be an even greater threat to the world. The clerical regime views itself as the vanguard of a global Islamist revolution explicitly hostile to the West. Iran has long nurtured Islamist terrorist groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. The country’s top leaders lead chants of “Death to America” and promise to wipe Israel off the planet. With its large population and landmass, India could survive a nuclear strike. Israel doesn’t have that luxury.

The U.S., Israel and India blundered by allowing Pakistan to acquire nuclear weapons. Repeating the blunder with Iran would be far worse.

India

Trump and India’s Modi split over U.S. role in Pakistan ceasefire (NBC News)

NBC News [6/18/2025 11:27 PM, Staff, 44540K]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi used his first conversation with President Donald Trump since the early May conflict between India and Pakistan to express his frustration with Trump’s repeated claims that he played a significant role in brokering a ceasefire between the two nuclear-armed countries.

"Prime Minister Modi firmly stated that India does not and will never accept mediation. There is complete political consensus in India on this matter," Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in a statement.

During a Tuesday phone call between the two leaders, Modi "clearly conveyed" to Trump that the U.S. played no role in the mediation between India and Pakistan and denied any discussion of a trade deal, Misri said.

The 35-minute call was initiated by Trump, he added.

The White House did not provide a separate readout of the call.

The two leaders last spoke in early May, after an April terror attack by Islamist militants in the Indian-controlled region of Kashmir killed 26 civilians.

India responded with a tit-for-tat bombing in Pakistan, resulting in a four-day conflict that threatened to explode into a broader war fueled by decades of tensions between the two countries.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. played a significant role in the eventual de-escalation of tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi.

"I stopped the war between Pakistan and India," Trump said outside the White House on Wednesday, where he called Modi "a fantastic man.".

Trump has also recently compared the current conflict between Israel and Iran to last month’s India-Pakistan conflict. Trump said Sunday that Israel and Iran should make a deal "just like I got India and Pakistan to make.".

The strident tone of India’s statement Wednesday was most likely due in part to Trump’s decision to host Pakistan’s chief of Army Staff for lunch at the White House.

Trump told reporters at the White House that the lunch was intended to "thank him for not going into the war" and to discuss a potential trade deal with the country.

The president also touted apparent progress on a trade deal with India.

Trump and Modi had been scheduled to meet in-person at the Group of Seven summit in Canada this week. But Trump left a day early, with the White House saying he cut the trip short due to tensions in the Middle East.

India chases Trump tariff deal in wake of UK trade accord (Nikkei Asia)

Nikkei Asia [6/19/2025 5:00 PM, Kiran Sharma, 1083K]
On July 9, U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping global trade tariffs are set to kick in, potentially upending economies and businesses around the world.

Like its international peers and rivals, India is scrambling to cut a deal to avoid punitive extra costs in shipping goods to its biggest export destination -- a 26% levy. Unlike most others, New Delhi at least has a fresh blueprint demonstrating what it must do to get trade pacts over the line, taking some tough decisions along the way: Its free trade agreement (FTA) with the U.K., announced last month.

India’s deal with the U.K. is its first direct pact with a Western economy, designed to boost trade between the two countries by as much as 25.5 billion pounds ($34 billion). But that deal was reached after three years of negotiations: Trump will impose his tariffs in less than three weeks, barring a change of heart.

It is far from clear whether India, or any of the regional players like Japan, South Korea and Vietnam that are seeking deals, can actually succeed in striking an accord with the Trump administration. The only major economy that has done so thus far is, in fact, the U.K.

But the sense of urgency within the Indian government is clear. During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s February visit to the U.S., the two sides announced plans to negotiate the "first tranche," or phase one, of a bilateral trade agreement by fall, and expand trade to $500 billion by 2030 from around $200 billion now. The U.S. will replace Russia as India’s biggest oil supplier, Trump and Modi agreed.

The U.S. had a 2024 goods trade deficit of $45.7 billion with India -- a protectionist economic powerhouse that had an average tariff rate of 17% in 2023. That deficit, up 5.4% from 2023, has been fueled by U.S. businesses switching supply chains to India away from China in response to Washington-Beijing trade tensions that dominated much of Trump’s previous term in the White House. Apple, for instance, has found itself on the receiving end of Trump criticism over shifting some iPhone production away from China to India, rather than to the U.S. itself.

"We are working out the early tranche, and as you are aware that there is a date, 9th of July. Before that, we would like to conclude this early tranche," India’s Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said earlier this week. "Both the teams are visiting each other. We visited the U.S. twice and the U.S. team has also come [to India] twice, so the progress is good ... We are hopeful that this would be done within the timelines."

Modi was long viewed by observers as lukewarm on trade deals, taking the line that his predecessors made too many concessions in reaching accords. But for Ajay Srivastava, founder of New Delhi-based think tank Global Trade Research Initiative, India has entered a new phase in its trade strategy, moving from FTAs with East Asian nations to tougher negotiations with Western powers.

"With the U.K. deal wrapped up and talks ongoing with the E.U. and U.S., India now faces tougher demands: Cutting auto tariffs, opening government contracts to foreign bidders, accepting stronger patent rules for medicines and easing digital trade restrictions. India never agreed to these demands in its earlier FTAs," Srivastava told Nikkei Asia.

India agreed to slash tariffs on 90% of its imports from the U.K. This includes halving duties on whisky and gin to 75% at first -- reducing them subsequently to 40% over a decade -- and on cars from more than 100% to 10%, products that have often remained sticking points in its trade negotiations, along with dairy and agriculture products.

The U.K., for its part, did away with tariffs on 99% of its imports from India, whose food product, jewelry and textile manufacturers are all expected to benefit.

Among the latter is Sandeep Budhiraja, a garment manufacturer and seller based in New Delhi who employs 30 people in his sole manufacturing unit and a separate wholesale shop, and has another 20 outsourced staff. As well as selling to domestic customers for more than two decades, he has supplied apparel to clients abroad through third-party vendors. But now he plans to export overseas directly.

"Once the (U.K.) FTA is implemented, it is going to bring significant benefits to Indian garment exporters," Budhiraja told Nikkei Asia. "I have started the process of applying for an export license and expect to receive it within a few weeks."

Budhiraja, who specializes in dresses -- especially ethnic Indian outfits such as salwar, kurta and dupatta (palazzo, tunic and stole) sets -- says there is increasing demand for such apparel overseas, especially in countries such as the U.K, Australia and the U.S., all of which have large Indian communities.

"This FTA comes amid crises in the textile industries of neighboring Bangladesh and Pakistan, whose economies rely heavily on garment exports," said Budhiraja, who said his manufacturing unit produces 40,000 to 50,000 garments annually, without revealing revenue details. "The situation is currently advantageous for the Indian garment industry and exporters."

The deal does not just help small players, according to Sivaramakrishnan Ganapathi, vice chairman and managing director of Bengaluru-headquartered Gokaldas Exports, India’s second-largest garment manufacturer and exporter, which supplies globally to brands such as Gap, Puma, Adidas, H&M and Marks & Spencer

"So, India becomes a preferred sourcing destination, which was the case for Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Vietnam, etc. Now India gets a level playing field with that," Ganapathi told Nikkei Asia.

He acknowledged that India has to take tougher decisions in negotiating FTAs now than in the past. "At the end of the day, [the] status quo will not take us anywhere. From a country standpoint, we have to see anything which supports job creation, economic activity, should be supported."

Though the U.K. deal would be dwarfed by an accord with the U.S. -- India-U.K. annual trade stands at about $60 billion, mostly services, and is forecast to double by 2030 -- it does provide a road map of sorts as to how India can deal with other parties in its ongoing negotiations.

"The wheels are now set in motion, and it can embolden other Western powers to believe negotiations with India are doable," Bernstein analysts wrote last month.

"This now is the first trade agreement of India with a European or North American economy, and this both frees up space for the much-coveted FTA with [the] U.S., while also acting as a strong signal that India is here to deal. We believe this is a classic case of shooting a smaller target while eyeing the jackpot."

As well as the U.K. and U.S. talks, India relaunched FTA negotiations with the European Union in 2022 after a nine-year lull. The parties said in late February that they were aiming for a trade agreement by the end of this year.

Referring to India’s trade negotiations, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said in April, "This time around, we are certainly geared up for a very high degree of ... urgency. I mean, we see a window here. We want to seize that window. Our trade teams are really charged up."

"We are trying to, in each case, to get the other side to kind of speed it up. ... This was normally a complaint in the past which used to be made about us, [that] we were the guys slowing it down. It’s actually the other way around today," he said, speaking ahead of the U.K. deal announcement. "That urgency we are trying to communicate to all three accounts," referring to the U.S., the European Union and the U.K.

Analysts, meanwhile, point out that India’s FTA negotiations with these advanced economies are fraught with challenges.

Apart from the FTAs requiring deeper tariff cuts from New Delhi, "India faces stringent nontariff measures and nontrade-related issues in these countries," according to Sharmila Kantha, an industrial policy specialist with the Confederation of Indian Industry, citing the E.U.’s carbon border-adjustment mechanism and deforestation regulation in a report published in Ideas for India, an economics and policy portal, late last month. India says these matters go beyond trade, while the EU continues to insist on their inclusion, making an FTA "difficult to finalize," Kantha wrote.

Besides, the Western countries "are keen to include issues such as labor, intellectual property, sustainability, and data management, among others, that could be onerous for India to meet," she wrote, observing that carbon tax, immigration and investment regulations were issues of intense discussions with the U.K. Several of the chapters included in the pact, such as government procurement, anti-corruption, and gender equity, are a first for India. "The extent to which India cedes policy space in these areas will be known only after the legal texts are finalized."

A key aspect of the U.K. FTA is that India has secured an exemption for its workers who are temporarily in Britain and their employers from paying U.K. social security contributions for a period of three years. An Indian government official said this exemption will benefit more than 60,000 Indian technology professionals in the U.K., who will now be able to save about 20% more annually. "Benefits to Indian companies and employees [are] to exceed 40 billion rupees ($463 million)," the official added.

For some economists, the unpredictability of Trump’s policymaking means that India will face hiccups in trade negotiations and that it needs to tread cautiously.

"You don’t know what [the U.S. president] wants, as their goalposts keep shifting. Even if you finalize a deal, it is not necessary that [Trump] would stick to that [framework]. It’s a complicated situation," said V. Upadhyay, a former professor of economics at the New Delhi-based Indian Institute of Technology. "Basically, [Trump] keeps flip-flopping, because of which there is a lack of clarity on how or in what way these negotiations will come to a conclusion."

Trump went so far as to state that he used trade threats to bring about a ceasefire between India and Pakistan last month after days of fighting between the nuclear-armed neighbors, a claim New Delhi has denied.

Whatever happens with the U.S., Manoj Pant, visiting professor at the Shiv Nadar University and former vice chancellor of government-run Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, said that what has been agreed with the U.K. has become the minimum basis on which India’s negotiations with the U.S. and the E.U. will proceed.

"In commodity trade, India’s tariffs are still highest in the world, there is no doubt. So you have to be less protective, otherwise you will not trade more," Pant said. "But in return, we’ll try to get areas where we had not been in the past, like textiles." The U.S. is the second-biggest supplier of liquefied natural gas to India.

In the meantime, businessmen like Gokaldas Exports’ Ganapathi must play a waiting game on trading with the U.S., which accounts for about 70% of his company’s revenue.

"In the longer run, either the [trade agreement] will kick in, or some negotiations will happen. We’ll get to know more in the next month or two months."

Before then, the supply chain will have absorb any tariff-related increases. "But eventually, it’ll get passed on to the customers," he said.

Air India Cuts International Flights After Crash Causes Chaos (New York Times)

New York Times [6/19/2025 4:14 PM, Anupreeta Das, 931K]
Air India, India’s flagship carrier, said it would temporarily reduce the number of international flights it operates, after the deadly crash of one of its flights last week unleashed plane delays, unnerved passengers and prompted technical inspections of its fleet.

The airline, which is grappling with the aftermath of the June 12 crash that killed at least 270 people, said late Wednesday in a post on X that it was cutting international services on certain planes by 15 percent at least until mid-July. The move, which applies to wide-body jets — planes with two aisles that are typically used for long-haul flights — is meant to “ensure stability of operations, better efficiency and minimize inconvenience to passengers,” it said.

Air India’s decision came a day after Indian authorities directed the airline to improve its operations. The airline has been inundated by complaints from passengers about canceled flights, faulty cabin devices and inadequate information being given to travelers. Company officials said the closure of airspace over Iran because of its conflict with Israel, which made flying routes longer, only added to the disruption.

On Tuesday, India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the country’s main civil flight regulator, said in a statement that it found no “major safety concerns” as it conducted technical inspections of Air India’s fleet of 33 Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner planes. That was the model of plane that crashed less than a minute after it took off from the Indian city of Ahmedabad, bound for London’s Gatwick Airport, last week.

So far, 26 of the airline’s planes have been cleared, Air India said.

However, the regulator did find “maintenance-related issues” and directed the carrier to “strengthen internal coordination across engineering, operations, ground handling units.” It also recommended that the airline improve its communications with passengers and build a better system to share real-time information about plane defects internally.

With a fleet of 128 planes, Air India operates around 1,000 flights daily, including to dozens of overseas destinations. One of its most popular routes is a nonstop flight from Delhi to New York.

Air India has a fleet of 190 planes, a company spokeswoman said late Thursday, though its website lists 128. Air India Group (including Air India Express) operates about 1,000 flights daily, including to dozens of overseas destinations. One of Air India’s most popular routes is a nonstop flight from Delhi to New York.

The carrier has canceled more than 80 flights since the crash a week ago. Dozens of customers took to social media to complain about abrupt cancellations and a lack of communication from the airline. In some instances, passengers had to get off planes after boarding or wait hours for pilots to arrive. Many who had traveled from smaller cities were stranded at airports, not knowing if or when they would reach their destinations.

On Thursday, India’s minister of civil aviation, Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu, instructed airport directors around the country to work closely with carriers to minimize disruption, keep passengers informed and ensure that they had enough access to food, water and seating while waiting for flight changes, according to a statement.

Investigators are trying to determine what caused Flight 171 to crash into buildings close to the airport, killing all but one of 242 passengers and dozens of others on the ground.

The plane struggled to gain lift immediately after taking off, and investigators from India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Boeing are in the process of downloading information contained in the plane’s black boxes. These devices could contain valuable information about any issues that affected the flight and the final communications between pilots.

Thursday’s statement said that the investigation was “progressing steadily.”

In Ahmedabad, the painstaking work of matching the DNA of crash victims with relatives who provided samples continued. As of Wednesday, the DNA of 208 victims had been identified, and 198 bodies had been handed over to their families, according to Dr. Rakesh Joshi, the superintendent of the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, where most of the work is being done.

As Dense Cities Encircle India’s Busiest Airports, Dangers Multiply (New York Times)

New York Times [6/19/2025 4:14 PM, Mujib Mashal and Suhasini Raj, 931K]
Bhavesh Patni had just sat down with his family for a lunch of eggplant and potato curry when an Air India plane took off from the runway behind their home in the city of Ahmedabad, flew over their heads and crashed into a medical college campus visible from their building.

As Mr. Patni climbed up to his terrace to watch the flames from a disaster that would ultimately kill 241 people on the plane and at least 34 on the ground, he shuddered as he thought about his family’s proximity to the nightmare below them.

In Ahmedabad, as in cities across this country of 1.4 billion people, there is little buffer between the increasingly busy airport and the densely populated neighborhoods that encircle it. That puts residents in the danger zone if anything goes wrong during takeoffs and landings, the time when most aviation accidents occur.

This reality illustrates a pressing challenge for India. The country’s growing wealth has given it the means to be more on the move. Air passenger traffic has doubled over the past decade, as has the number of operational airports. But India’s expanding aviation ambitions have been superimposed on existing urban infrastructures that are already pushed to the limit by the rapid growth of cities.

“It was only by God’s grace that we survived,” Mr. Patni, a cargo handler at the Ahmedabad airport, said days after last week’s crash. As he spoke, rescue workers were still retrieving human remains from the wreckage, and cranes were trying to dislodge the aircraft’s tail from the medical college building’s roof.

Around the world, major airports are increasingly situated far from city centers, in part because such land is cheaper and expansion is easier, and in part to mitigate the health risks of noise and air pollution and the possible dangers of air accidents.

But the airports in India’s biggest cities are some of the most “enclosed” in the world, according to a 2022 study by researchers in Belgium. Mumbai’s airport topped the study’s rankings, and the airports in Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Delhi were among the top 25.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has particularly promoted the growth of air connectivity across the immense country. India, which has doubled the number of its international and domestic airports to over 150 in the past decade, says it plans to increase the number to 350 in the next two decades. With more than one million flights and 175 million passengers last year, India was the third largest air transport market, after the United States and China.

The country’s expanding economy has finally brought in the kind of resources that could lift up its long-neglected infrastructure. Mr. Modi’s critics say he has pushed a model of development that prioritizes quick results at the cost of careful planning and execution.

They point to roads and bridges that collapse soon after completion, and to the flouting of basic safety standards. India does not have enough airport officials who understand the minute details that are crucial to ensuring safety, said Yeshwanth Shenoy, a public interest lawyer and activist who has been going to court to try to improve airport safety for more than a decade.

A parliamentary report earlier this year said that there was serious staffing shortage in official bodies that enforce aviation safety standards, including a vacancy rate of more than 50 percent in the civil aviation authority.

In Mumbai, where the international airport accounts for a quarter of India’s air traffic, there are more than 1,000 buildings that violate safety standards meant to prevent the obstruction of flight paths, Mr. Shenoy said.

The city authorities admitted in court that hundreds of buildings were obstructions. But since the first demolition orders were given in 2016, only a handful have come down. And hundreds more have been built, Mr. Shenoy said.

In the Ahmedabad crash, there has been no indication that buildings were in the way. The plane appeared to have failed to gain sufficient lift after takeoff, and went into a steady descent before crashing less than a mile from the runway. There has also not been any sign of a bird strike, a problem that the airport has struggled with for years.

But it has long been clear that there is little cushion around the airport, with packed clusters of modest homes, shops and hotels pressing up against its gates.

“If the airplane had crashed 500 meters earlier, thousands could have died,” said Himmatsingh Patel, a former mayor of Ahmedabad, which is the largest city in the western state of Gujarat.

In Mr. Modi’s vision for India’s development, Ahmedabad has a special place as a “model city.” It was there that he tested many of his ideas when he was chief minister of Gujarat, a post he held for more than a decade before becoming prime minister in 2014.

The city’s favored status has continued even after Mr. Modi took national office. In 2014, it was on a waterfront in Ahmedabad that he shared a swing with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping.

The city is also home to the country’s largest cricket stadium, named after Mr. Modi. When President Trump visited India in 2020, Mr. Modi took him to a rally at that stadium that was attended by 100,000 people.

Ahmedabad was a very different place when its airport was built in the 1930s. It stood a safe distance of about 10 miles from the old city, Mr. Patel, the former mayor, said.

Mr. Patel, 64, said he remembered joining his family as a child on picnics at the edge of the airport, to watch takeoffs and landings.

Ahmedabad became an international airport in the 1990s. The city’s population had grown along with it; today an estimated eight million live there, more than double the number two decades ago.

One study found that a tenth of the population was affected by loud noise from air traffic. Many in the neighborhoods around the airport said such noise was routine.

As the airport grew busier, these neighborhoods — where amenities like grain markets and medicine shops sprang up — became highly sought after for jobs.

Vikram Sinh, 60, who lives in a government-owned apartment there and runs a grocery store, was able to put two of his children through medical school with his earnings. Both are now doctors in Canada.

“This is a golden area in all of Gujarat,” he said. “I do not feel like leaving this place.”

The airport currently has over 13 million passengers a year. Its operations were handed over in 2020 to Adani Airport Holdings, part of the empire of Gautam Adani, a billionaire ally of Mr. Modi’s. The company signed a 50-year deal with the government.

As it has laid out its plans for the airport’s future, Adani Holdings has described it as “one of the most land-constrained airports in India.” Yet the company aims to expand the airport’s passenger capacity to 18 million annually by next year and to 40 million by 2040.

Mr. Patel, who is a member of the opposition Congress party, said the expansion of the existing airport in the middle of Ahmedabad when open land outside the densely-populated city was plenty spoke to a lack of long term planning.

“We do patchwork development,” he said, “not the kind that looks ahead to the next 25 years.”

Dharmendra Shah, a leader of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat, acknowledged the scarcity of available land inside the city. He said the authorities would study what caused the crash, but also he stood by the city’s plans.

“According to me,” he said, “the development model of the city is just fine, including the airport’s.”

Air India crash underscores risks of country’s infrastructure boom (Washington Post)

Washington Post [6/19/2025 2:00 AM, Karishma Mehrotra and Supriya Kumar, 32099K]
When Air India Flight 171 went down last week just moments after taking off from the airport in Ahmedabad — smashing with deadly force into the dining hall of a medical college as students and professors ate lunch — the city’s bustling Meghaninagar neighborhood resembled a war zone.

At least 28 people were killed in and around the B.J. Medical College, in addition to all but one of the 242 passengers and crew members aboard the flight. While the cause of the accident is still being investigated, aviation experts said the death toll on the ground underscored a long-standing and largely overlooked air safety risk in India: dense construction dangerously close to airports.

Pilots, courts and analysts have warned for years that India’s breakneck urban development was pushing population centers ever nearer to the nation’s runways, as the government’s drive for connectivity collided with a lack of regulatory enforcement. In many cities, buildings, warehouses, electricity poles and even towering billboards crowd flight paths.

“Many of us have been pointing out that you are announcing growth, but we are terribly behind on safety,” said Mohan Ranganathan, a former instructor pilot and aviation safety consultant.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s infrastructure agenda, the number of airports in India has doubled to nearly 160 over the past decade, with plans to add 50 more by 2030. At a ribbon-cutting ceremony in April at a new airport in Haryana, Modi said the project would “elevate the aspirations of the youth” and bring “progress for the poor.”

“We need more airports, but create them a distance away from the city,” said Jitender Bhargava, a former Air India executive director.

In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration enforces “obstruction standards” around airports, with rules defining the height of objects that could pose a threat to navigation. In India, experts say, there are fixed regulations, but they are often bent by developers.

In Mumbai, the country’s financial hub, lawyers and a former air traffic control employee have been locked in a court battle with developers since 2014, hoping to force the removal of buildings and other obstacles near the runway at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.

In 2017, the Bombay High Court ordered authorities to remove 137 structures obstructing the flight path. But the builders appealed to the airport authority to stay the demolitions, and that appeal is still pending.

A court filing in 2022 said most of the original structures were still standing, and 498 new ones had been built. The number of problematic structures is now likely to be in excess of a thousand, according to Yeshwanth Shenoy, the lawyer who filed the petition.

Alok Aradhe, chief justice of the Bombay High Court, told the regulator for India’s aviation authority at a hearing in March that “you cannot sit tight over it, endanger lives of passengers and permit violations to continue.”

Just to the east, in the city of Navi Mumbai, where construction has begun on a new airport set to open this year, regulators have already relaxed height restrictions on nearby infrastructure, from 180 feet to 525 feet.

“What is amusing us is that the airport is yet to come up, but buildings are coming up first,” Dipankar Datta, then a judge on the Bombay High Court, observed in 2022. “Development is needed, but not at the risk of people.”

The issue extends well beyond Mumbai. In the western state of Gujarat, courts rebuked authorities in 2019 for failing to act against 27 builders for their height violations near Surat Airport. In New Delhi, regulators identified 365 obstructions near Indira Gandhi International Airport after a legal petition in 2017. In the central city of Nagpur, a right to information request last year revealed that 63 structures were obstructing flight paths at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport, according to the Times of India.

“You can’t put a stop to growth, but you have to grow with adequate precautions,” Bhargava said.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the Airports Authority of India did not respond to requests for comment.

In other places, the government has struggled to obtain and convert private property to improve airport security. In 2017, in the southern state of Kerala, federal regulators proposed extending the infamously short runway at the Kozhikode International Airport — on a plateau surrounded by steep drops — from 9,200 feet to 11,500 feet, but the plan stalled over land disputes and bureaucratic gridlock.

In 2020, a flight operated by Air India Express, a subsidiary of Air India, skidded off the runway during a heavy downpour, tumbling into a gorge and killing 21 people. In the aftermath, the Kerala state government vowed to redouble its efforts to acquire land to lengthen the runway. But “five years after the crash, no runway extension has happened,” Shenoy said.

Following the tragedy in Ahmedabad, Ranganathan said India needs to take “proactive steps” to bolster aviation safety, “even if it hurts development.”

Critics say broader oversight is needed for transportation projects of all kinds, as the country races to expand not just its airports, but also its roads and railways. In July 2024, Indian Transportation Minister Nitin Gadkari told Parliament that at least 26 bridges on national highways had collapsed between 2021 and 2024.

Between 2014 and 2024, 748 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured in nearly 700 separate train accidents, India’s railway minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, revealed to Parliament in August.

Until last week, aviation had remained a relative bright spot.

“We are very safe here,” Ram Mohan Naidu, India’s minister of civil aviation, said at a news conference earlier this year when asked about the increase in plane accidents worldwide. “We have a very strong system.”

Air India warned for flying Airbus planes with unchecked escape slides (Reuters)

Reuters [6/19/2025 10:00 PM, Aditya Kalra, 121822K]
India’s aviation regulator has warned Air India for breaching safety rules after three of its Airbus planes flew despite being overdue checks on emergency equipment, and for being slow to address the issue, government documents show.

The warning notices and an investigation report - both reviewed by Reuters - were not in any way related to last week’s crash of an Air India Boeing 787-8 plane that killed all but one of the 242 people onboard, and were sent days before that incident.

In the report, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said spot checks in May on three Air India Airbus planes found that they were operated despite mandatory inspections being overdue on the "critical emergency equipment" of escape slides.

In one case, the watchdog found that the inspection of an Airbus A320 jet was delayed by more than a month before being carried out on May 15. AirNav Radar data shows that during the delay the plane flew to international destinations such as Dubai, Riyadh and Jeddah.

Another case, involving an Airbus A319 used on domestic routes, showed checks were over three months late, while a third showed an inspection was two days late.

"The above cases indicate that aircraft were operated with expired or unverified emergency equipment, which is a violation of standard airworthiness and safety requirements," the DGCA report said.

Air India "failed to submit timely compliance responses" to deficiencies raised by the DGCA, "further evidencing weak procedural control and oversight," it added.

Air India, which was taken over by the Tata Group in 2022 from the government, said in statement that it was "accelerating" verification of all maintenance records, including dates of the escape slides, and would complete the process in the coming days.

In one of the cases, Air India said, the issue came to light when an engineer from AI Engineering Services "inadvertently deployed an escape slide during maintenance".

The DGCA and Airbus did not respond to Reuters queries.

Checks on escape slides are "a very serious issue. In case of accident, if they don’t open, it can lead to serious injuries," said Vibhuti Singh, a former legal expert at the government’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau.

The DGCA said in its report that the certificates of airworthiness for aircraft that miss mandatory checks were "deemed suspended".

The warning notices and the report were sent by Animesh Garg, a deputy director of airworthiness in the Indian government, to Air India CEO Campbell Wilson as well as the airline’s continuing airworthiness manager, quality manager and head of planning, the documents showed.

An Indian aviation lawyer said such breaches typically attract monetary and civil penalties on both individual executives and the airline.

Wilson told Reuters last year that global parts shortages were affecting most airlines, but the problem was "more acute" for Air India as its "product is obviously a lot more dated", with many planes not refreshed since they were delivered in 2010-2011.

‘SYSTEMIC CONTROL FAILURE’.

The Indian regulator, like many abroad, often fines airlines for compliance lapses. India’s junior aviation minister in February told parliament that authorities had warned or fined airlines in 23 instances for safety violations last year.

Around half of them - 12 - involved Air India and Air India Express, including in one case for "unauthorised entry into cockpit". The biggest fine was $127,000 on Air India for "insufficient oxygen on board" during a flight to San Francisco.

Last week’s crash, the causes of which are still being investigated, will further challenge Air India’s attempts to rebuild its image, after years of criticism from travellers for poor service.

Air India’s Chairman N. Chandrasekaran on Monday told staff the crash should be a catalyst to build a safer airline, urging employees to stay resolute amid any criticism.

In its report, the DGCA also said several Air India aircraft checked by officials had outdated registration paperwork. Air India told Reuters all but one aircraft complied with such requirements and this "poses no impact" to safety.

The DGCA investigation report pulled up the airline for what it described as "inadequate internal oversight.".

"Despite prior notifications and identified deficiencies, the organization’s internal quality and planning departments failed to implement effective corrective action, indicating systemic control failure," it said.

India says it has yet to decide where to analyse crashed plane’s recorders (Reuters)

Reuters [6/19/2025 10:34 AM, Hritam Mukherjee, 5.2M]
India has yet to decide where the black box recorders from last week’s fatal crash of an Air India plane will be analysed, the government said on Thursday.

Earlier, Indian newspaper The Economic Times reported that India planned to send the recorders to the U.S. for analysis as the fire that followed the crash had damaged them to an extent it would be impossible to extract data in India.

The crash of the Boeing (BA.N) Dreamliner moments after take-off from the western city of Ahmedabad on June 12 killed 241 people on board and at least 30 on the ground in the world’s worst aviation disaster in a decade.

The government said in a statement that the decision on where the decoding of the recorders would take place would be made after India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has made a "due assessment" of all technical, safety and security considerations.

AAIB’s Director General GVG Yugandhar told Reuters earlier in an emailed response that the Economic Times report was "factually incorrect", but gave no further details.

The government statement did not explicitly rule out the possibility of the flight recorders being sent to the United States.

It asked for people not to speculate on what it called sensitive matters and stressed the crash probe was progressing with all necessary support from local authorities and agencies.

Planes’ black boxes have two components - the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder - and provide crucial insights for crash investigators, including altitude and airspeed data and pilot conversation records that help determine probable causes of crashes.

The Economic Times report said recorder data would be extracted at the National Transportation Safety Board’s Washington-based laboratory and shared with the AAIB in the presence of Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch.

The NTSB and UK’s AAIB said in separate statements that India’s accident investigating body would release more information on the probe.

India and Canada Move to Mend Rift Over Sikh Activist’s Killing (New York Times)

New York Times [6/18/2025 4:14 PM, Anupreeta Das, 931K]
India and Canada signaled a significant diplomatic thaw nearly two years after the killing of a prominent Canadian Sikh cleric set off a deep rift between the two countries that culminated in each expelling the other’s senior diplomats.

The two countries said in separate statements on Tuesday that they would appoint new high commissioners, or ambassadors, restart trade talks and restore visa processing and other services to citizens. The announcements came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and the Canadian leader, Mark Carney, met during the Group of 7 nations summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, on Tuesday. India is not a member of the bloc but Mr. Modi was invited to attend by Mr. Carney.

“The leaders agreed to designate new high commissioners, with a view to returning to regular services to citizens and businesses in both countries,” according to a statement from Mr. Carney’s office.

Indian officials said in a statement that the two countries are likely to restart “senior ministerial as well as working-level engagements across various domains to rebuild trust and bring momentum to the relationship.”

However, neither side referred to the reason their relations had deteriorated in the past two years.

In September 2023, the Canadian government, led then by Justin Trudeau, accused India of orchestrating the fatal shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an activist who supported carving out a Sikh homeland, Khalistan, from India. Mr. Nijjar, a Canadian citizen, was fatally shot in British Columbia that June.

The Indian government, which had branded Mr. Nijjar a terrorist, rejected the allegations and accused Canada of harboring extremists who were plotting violence on Indian soil in the name of Khalistan. It also alleged that Mr. Trudeau’s accusations were politically motivated and he was sympathetic to Sikh separatists for political gain. Canada is home to the largest number of Sikhs outside India and many support his Liberal Party.

Trade talks and business ties between the two countries deteriorated, as did services such as issuing travel visas. By last October, the rift had deepened. Canada kicked out India’s high commissioner and five other diplomats, calling them “persons of interest” in the killing of Mr. Nijjar. India retaliated by expelling six Canadian diplomats.

But in recent months, Mr. Trudeau’s resignation and the election of Mr. Carney — a prominent economist and former governor of the Bank of England — presented an opportunity for the two countries to reset their relationship.

India is a perpetrator of foreign interference, Canadian intelligence agency says (Reuters)

Reuters [6/18/2025 11:53 AM, Anna Mehler, 51390K]
India is a perpetrator of foreign interference, Canada’s intelligence agency said in a report published on Wednesday, just after India’s and Canada’s prime ministers vowed to strengthen ties at a global summit hosted by Canada.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held what both sides called productive talks on Tuesday at the G7 summit in Alberta and agreed to reinstate top diplomats they had withdrawn last year.

Carney drew outrage from some members of Canada’s Sikh community when he invited Modi to the G7.

Canada-India relations have been tense since former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2023 accused India’s government of involvement in the June 18, 2023, murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist leader in Canada.

Modi’s government has denied involvement in Nijjar’s killing and has accused Canada of providing a safe haven for Sikh separatists.

The intelligence report noted transnational repression "plays a central role in India’s activity in Canada," though it said China poses the greatest counter-intelligence threat to Canada and also named Russia, Iran and Pakistan.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in October they had communicated more than a dozen threats to Sikhs advocating for the creation of a homeland carved out of India.

"Indian officials, including their Canada-based proxy agents, engage in a range of activities that seek to influence Canadian communities and politicians," the Canadian Security Intelligence Service report reads. "These activities attempt to steer Canada’s positions into alignment with India’s interests on key issues, particularly with respect to how the Indian government perceives Canada-based supporters of an independent homeland that they call Khalistan.".

The Indian High Commission and the Chinese embassy in Canada did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

India targeting Sikh separatist movement in N. America: Canada (Agence France-Presse)

Agence France-Presse [6/18/2025 12:45 PM, Staff, 58908K]
India has a "clear intent" to target members of a Sikh separatist movement in North America, a Canadian intelligence report said Wednesday after leaders of the two nations agreed to turn the page on a bitter spat over an assassination.

Prime Minister Mark Carney, who took office in March, welcomed his counterpart Narendra Modi to the Canadian Rockies as a guest at a summit of the Group of Seven major economies.

They agreed during bilateral talks on Tuesday to name new high commissioners, as ambassadors are known between Commonwealth nations, in hopes of restoring normal operations for citizens and businesses.

A rift had emerged after Carney’s predecessor Justin Trudeau publicly accused India of involvement in the assassination of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil and expelled the Indian ambassador, triggering a furious reciprocal response from India.

In a report published on Wednesday, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said the slaying of Hardeep Singh Nijjar near Vancouver signaled "a significant escalation in India’s repression efforts against the Khalistan movement and a clear intent to target individuals in North America.".

CSIS also identified India as a persistent foreign interference threat, along with China, Russia and others.

"Canada must remain vigilant about continued foreign interference conducted by the government of India, not only within ethnic, religious and cultural communities, but also in Canada’s political system," CSIS said.

The agency said it would continue to monitor India’s activities in Canada, while a police investigation into Nijjar’s murder continued.

Canada is home to the largest Sikh diaspora outside India. Making up about two percent of the Canadian population and clustered in suburban swing areas, the community has exerted growing political influence.

Nijjar, a naturalized Canadian citizen who advocated for an independent Sikh state called Khalistan, was shot dead in the parking lot of a Sikh temple in British Columbia in June 2023.

India has denied involvement in the killing and said Canada should take more action against violent advocates for Khalistan, which has been reduced to a fringe movement inside India.

The United States has also accused an Indian agent of involvement in an unsuccessful plot against a Sikh separatist on US soil.

At the conclusion of the G7 summit in Kananaskis, all of the leaders issued a statement that condemned state-sponsored "transnational repression," including targeted assassinations.

India Signals Reluctance to Call Out Israeli Aggression (The Diplomat)

The Diplomat [6/19/2025 4:14 PM, Sudha Ramachandran, 4K]
India’s positions on conflicts in West Asia involving Israel, reflected in its vote on resolutions and statements at multilateral forums in recent days, lay bare a clear reluctance on its part to support, or even participate in discussions on, motions that call out Israeli aggression.

On June 12, India abstained from a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for an "immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire by all parties" in Gaza. The resolution "strongly condemned the use of starvation and the denial of aid as tactics of war" and demanded that "Israel immediately lift the blockade on Gaza and open all border crossings for aid deliveries." 149 countries voted for the resolution, with the United States and Israel voting against it. India was among 19 countries that abstained.

Two days later, on June 14, India distanced itself from a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) statement that "strongly condemn[ed]" Israel’s military strikes on the night of June 12-13 that targeted military bases, missile facilities, and nuclear installations in Iran. The strikes killed top military officials and nuclear scientists as well as civilians.

"Such aggressive actions against civilian targets, including energy and transport infrastructure, which have resulted in civilian casualties, are a gross violation of international law and the United Nations Charter," the SCO statement said, adding that "they constitute an infringement on Iran’s sovereignty, cause damage to regional and international security, and pose serious risks to global peace and stability.".

India was the only South Asian country, as well as the only member of BRICS and the SCO, to abstain on the UNGA’s latest Gaza ceasefire resolution.

As for the SCO statement on the Israel-Iran war, India’s decision to distance itself made it not only the only outlier in the regional organization but also one that did not stand in support of a co-member of the group. Incidentally, Iran, the SCO’s youngest member, joined the grouping in 2023 when India was its chair. India’s support to Iran back then is said to have played an important role in Iran’s membership.

Among the countries that were at the forefront of support for the Palestinian cause for several decades, India established diplomatic ties with Israel only in 1992. Bilateral relations grew rapidly thereafter, especially since 2014 when the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, a long-time advocate of close ties with Israel, came to power. In the 11 years since, technological, intelligence, and military cooperation has deepened significantly, with counterterrorism cooperation being particularly robust.

If previously India’s position on the Israel-Palestinian conflict saw it routinely vote in support of the Palestinians in global bodies, that has changed over the past decade.

As Nicholas Blarel, author of "The Evolution of India’s Israel Policy: Continuity, Change, and Compromise since 1922," told me in an interview in 2023, New Delhi shifted away "from systematically voting in support of Palestine in multilateral settings like the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to hedging between supporting Palestine, abstaining on some votes condemning Israel explicitly and not the actions of terrorist groups like Hamas, and to sometimes voting, albeit rarely, in support of Israel when the votes were specifically about condemning terrorist outfits.".

"Rather than a clear re-alignment with Israel, India under Modi had begun to adapt its position on the merits of particular cases, and what it perceives to be in its national interest," he pointed out.

Increasingly, prioritization of what the Modi government deems to be India’s national interest has determined its position on the Gaza war in the U.N. And supporting Israel, or at least not criticizing it, is seen by New Delhi to be in India’s interest. The recent abstention at the UNGA is the fourth time in three years that India has abstained on a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, "indicating a growing trend in the Modi government’s policy not to vote on statements critical of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.".

As for the Iran-Israel war, India has "close and friendly relations" with both countries.

India has strong civilizational and economic relations with Iran. It has invested in the development of Iran’s Chabahar deep-sea port, and cooperation with Iran is key to New Delhi realizing its economic and strategic ambitions in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

My colleague at The Diplomat, Akhilesh Pillalamarri, pointed out in his October 2024 article, "India has done a good job of cultivating good relations with sets of countries that are hostile to each other, such as… with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.".

This has seen it do a careful balancing act in statements on Israel and Iran during their faceoffs in recent years.

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) statements were careful not to apportion blame. Following the Iranian missile strike on October 1 last year and the Israeli retaliation soon after, MEA statements referred merely to the "evolving situation" and called on "all concerned to exercise restraint.".

Its June 13 "Statement on the situation between Iran and Israel," which was issued hours after the Israeli attacks, was similarly cautious. India was "deeply concerned at the recent developments between Iran and Israel," it said, urging "both sides to avoid any escalatory steps." It called for utilizing "existing channels of dialogue and diplomacy… towards a de-escalation of the situation and resolving underlying issues.".

It was with the SCO issuing a statement that was explicitly critical of Israel that India was forced to take a clearer stand. While it did not vote against the statement, its abstention laid bare its unwillingness to call out Israel on its aggression.

Explaining its abstention from the SCO statement, the MEA said: "India’s own position on the matter had been articulated" in its June 13 statement. India’s "overall position… was communicated to other SCO members. Keeping that in mind, India did not participate in the discussions on the SCO statement," it said.

India’s support for Israel has been growing over the past decade. It is likely to grow stronger in the coming months and years.

Following the terrorist attack at Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir on April 22, when 26 men, mainly tourists, were killed, Israel was among many countries that condemned the attack and expressed solidarity with India’s fight against terrorism.

However, unlike other countries, including India’s friends, who were neutral or non-committal when it launched airstrikes on Pakistan on the night of May 6-7. Israel stood solidly with India.

"India has the right to self-defense, Israel’s Consul General in Mumbai, Kobbi Shoshani, said soon after India launched Operation Sindoor. "That was an action of self-defense, and I’m very proud of this operation." Importantly, Israeli drones and weapon systems played an important role in the damage inflicted on Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Tehran was shifting away from India’s positions. In the past, Iran had strongly supported India on the Kashmir issue. In the 1990s, for instance, when the militancy in Kashmir was at its height and India was being censured for human rights violations, Iran blocked anti-India statements and resolutions in the OIC and UN human rights bodies. However, in more recent decades, its positions on Kashmir were critical of India. In 2019, for example, when India revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy, several of Iran’s Grand Ayatollahs and top clerics slammed India’s move as an "ugly," even "barbaric act.".

"We have good relations with India, but we expect the Indian government to adopt a just policy towards the noble people of Kashmir and prevent the oppression & bullying of Muslims in this region," Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted.

Indian officials told The Diplomat that India is not comfortable with Iran pursuing a nuclear weapons program. "Yet another nuclear weapons power in the region is hardly in India’s security interests," one official said.

Consequently, India may not be averse to Israel striking blows on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

However, the political and military weakening of Iran as a result of the Israeli attacks is not in India’s interest either. Iran has kept Pakistan in check. A weakened Iran would impact the geopolitical balance in South Asia.

India Shuts Down Schools Over Birth Rate Decline (Newsweek)

Newsweek [6/18/2025 11:25 AM, Jordan King, 3805K]
Some parts of India have been forced to shut down schools amid the country’s declining birth rates.

Economist Sanjeev Sanyal, who was previously the principal economic adviser in India’s finance ministry and a member of the Economic Advisory Council to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has spoken about this happening and called for it to occur "more routinely.".

"Our population is only growing now because we are living longer, we are not having enough babies," he told the Indian financial newspaper Mint on Monday. "So our problem is already the case that in parts of the country we have to shut down schools.".

"We should be shutting them down," he added. "We are doing them slowly. But we need to do them more routinely. Because whenever I mention that we need to shut down schools, people get very emotional about this issue.".

"But in fact, there are many parts of the country, in fact now it would be more than half of the country, where if you do not close and merge schools then they don’t have enough cluster children," he continued. "They don’t have critical mass.".

"So we need to begin to adjust to the fact that our birth rates have radically declined," he said.

India’s Birth Rate Problem

India is one of the many countries around the world that is struggling with an aging population, meaning that people will continue to live longer while fertility rates fall.

The nation, the most populous country on Earth, had a fertility rate of 2 (the average number of children a woman has) in 2023, the most recent year for which the World Bank has fertility data. The rate has fallen drastically from 1950, when it was 5.7.

On top of this, the number of people aged 65 or older is projected to double over the next two decades, increasing from 108 million in 2025 to 254 million by 2050, according to the United Nations (U.N.) Population Division.

By then, older people will make up 15 percent of the population, surpassing the number of children under the age of 15 by 2056.

Where Has India Shut Down Schools?

Some 36 government primary schools were shut down in the two academic years leading up to 2024 in Goa, India’s smallest state, according to the local daily newspaper The Goan Everyday.

Last July, the state’s Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said at the Goa Legislative Assembly that the falling birth rate was partially to blame for this, along with the rise in parents sending their kids to aided schools, privately managed schools that receive financial assistance, or "aid," from the government or local authorities.

Altone D’Costa, who is part of the Goa Legislative Assembly, added that the closure of government schools is problematic for several reasons, including that they often serve as community centers in rural areas.

Multiple areas in the mountainous region of Uttarakhand have also shut down schools–although this is also because of large-scale migration out of hill districts, The Times of India reported in September 2024.

In the Himalayan town of Pithoragarh, 21 schools shut down in the academic year 2023-24 while other schools have had to merge.

District Education Officer Tarun Pant said this was because of "fewer children" along with "socio-economic factors" and "mass migration from villages.".

Similarly, in the city of Dehradun, in Uttarakhand, 24 schools were shut down in the 2023-24 academic year, after zero students enrolled, according to The Times of India. In the 2022-23 academic year, 15 schools closed.

It is unclear whether India’s national government, or its states governments, plan to shut schools down more "routinely" as Sanyal has called for. Newsweek has contacted the country’s Ministry of Education, via email, for comment.

The Bigger Picture

In January, Newsweek reported on how India’s aging population has led to stories about the elderly being abandoned by their children.

Unique aspects of India’s population problem include the fact that there is a disparity between states, meaning population shifts are not the same across the country, with population declining in some states and not others.

Another component is gender inequality with Poonam Muttreja, the executive director of the Population Foundation of India, talking about how the burden of caregiving, whether for children or elderly family members, falls disproportionately on women.

Policies "must enable women to balance work and caregiving effectively," she told Newsweek.

Despite all this, India’s working-age population has grown larger than its dependent population since 2018, and this "bulge in the working-age population" is expected to last until 2055, which offers a span of 37 years, the U.N. Population Division said.

"During this period, countries experience a window of opportunity to accelerate economic gains," the division said. "Reaping this ‘demographic dividend,’ however, depends on sustained investments in education, health, and employment opportunities to enable productive and decent work for young people entering the workforce.".

NSB

India illegally deporting Muslim citizens at gunpoint to Bangladesh, say rights groups (The Guardian)

The Guardian [6/19/2025 3:00 AM, Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Shaikh Azizur Rahman, 83M]
The Indian government has been accused of illegally deporting Indian Muslims to Bangladesh, prompting fears of an escalating campaign of persecution.

Thousands of people, largely Muslims suspected of being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, have been rounded up by police across India in recent weeks, according to human rights groups, with many of them deprived of due legal process and sent over the border to neighbouring Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

Indian citizens are among those alleged to have been deported illegally, according to lawyers and accounts by deportees. Those who tried to resist being “pushed back” were threatened at gunpoint by India’s border security force, according to several accounts.

About 200 people have since been returned to India by Bangladeshi border guards after being found to be Indian citizens, with some forced to walk miles across treacherous terrain to get home.

“Instead of following due legal procedure, India is pushing mainly Muslims and low-income communities from their own country to Bangladesh without any consent,” said Taskin Fahmina, senior researcher at Bangladesh human rights organisation Odhikar. “This push by India is against national and international law.”

Bangladesh’s foreign ministry said it had written letters to the Indian authorities urging them to stop sending people over the border without consultation and vetting, as was previous official procedure, but they said those letters had gone unanswered.

Among those deported and returned was Hazera Khatun, 62, a physically disabled grandmother. Khatun’s daughter Jorina Begum said they had documents to prove two generations of her mother’s family had been born in India. “How can she be a Bangladeshi?” said Begum.

Khatun was picked up by police on 25 May and the next day was pushed into a van with 14 other Muslims who were then driven to the border with Bangladesh in the middle of the night. There, Khatun said officers from India’s Border Security Force (BSF) forced them to cross the border.

“They treated us like animals,” said Khatun. “We protested that we are Indians, why should we enter Bangladesh? But they threatened us with guns and said, ‘We will shoot you if you don’t go to the other side.’ After we heard four gunshots from the Indian side, we got very scared and quickly walked across the border.”

The group were taken into custody by Bangladesh’s border guards, and held in a makeshift camp in a field. However, Khatun said the authorities in Bangladesh would not allow the group to stay as their documents showed they were Indian citizens. They were driven a truck to the border and told to walk to India.

“When we returned, it was terrible,” said Khatun. “We had to walk through forests and rivers … We were so scared, we thought if the BSF officers found us coming back, they would kill us. I was sure we were going to die.” Eventually she made it back to her village on 31 May. According to her family, she was covered in bruises and deeply traumatised.

The escalating crackdown against so-called “illegal Bangladeshis” by the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government comes in the wake of an attack by Islamist militants in the Indian-administered region of Kashmir in April which killed 25 Hindu tourists and a guide, after which the BJP government vowed to expel “outsiders”.

The mass detentions increased with the launch of Operation Sindhoor in May, when India launched strikes at neighbouring Muslim-majority Pakistan, which it blamed for the Kashmir militant attack and vowed to wipe out terror groups targeting India.

Over its 11 years in power, the BJP government has been accused by rights groups and citizens of persecuting, harassing and disenfranchising the country’s 200 million Muslims as part of its Hindu nationalist agenda, charges the government denies.

The most widespread targeting and deporting of Muslims in recent weeks has been in the north-eastern state of Assam, as the BJP-run state government has escalated its long-running campaign against those it calls “infiltrators”. About 100 people who have been recently detained in the state are missing, according to activists.

The expulsions were described by activists as a worrying escalation of a long-running exercise in Assam to expel “illegal infiltrators”, in which Muslims are routinely called before “foreigners tribunals”, quasi-judicial courts, to prove they were born in India, or arrived before 1971. A controversial citizenship survey also took place in the state in 2019, resulting in thousands being put into detention centres.

Only Muslims have to prove their citizenship after Hindus, Sikhs and other religions were made exempt from the exercise by the state government.

This week, the hardline BJP chief minister of Assam, Himanta Sarma said it was now a policy of the state to automatically expel “illegal foreigners”. “This process will be intensified and expedited,” he said.

Not all those deported who claim to be Indian citizens have been able to return. Among those still stuck in Bangladesh is 67-year-old Maleka Begam, 67, from Assam, who was detained by police on 25 May.

Speaking over the phone from a Bangladeshi border village in a state of distress, Begam – who is physically infirm and cannot walk unassisted – said she had been the only woman in a group of about 20 Muslims sent over to Bangladesh in the middle of the night on 27 May. She said they were ordered at gunpoint by the BSF to cross the border.

Begam’s son Imran Ali said his mother had documentation to prove she was born in India, and that all seven of her siblings also had proof. “Her deportation to Bangladesh is completely illegal. However, I cannot understand now how we can bring her back from Bangladesh. She is old and sick. We are very anxious about her,” said Ali.

Assam police and the BSF did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Hundreds of people, mostly Muslims, have also been deported from the capital, Delhi, as well as the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. In Gujarat, the police claimed to have detained more than 6,500 suspected “Bangladeshi citizens”, and thousands were paraded through the streets, but it was later declared that only 450 of them were found to be illegal. Last week, Bangladesh’s border guards turned back four Muslim men picked up by police in Mumbai and deported, after it was found they were Indian migrant workers from the state of West Bengal.

Maj Gen Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui, director general of Border Guard Bangladesh, condemned India’s pushback policy as “a deviation from humane governance”.

“It contradicts international law and the dignity of the affected individuals,” said Siddiqui. “Acts such as abandoning people in forests, forcing women and children into rivers, or dumping stateless refugees at sea are not consistent with human rights principles.”

Central Asia

News analysis: With Russian and Chinese nuclear plants, will Kazakhstan balance the risk, or double it? (EurasiaNet)

EurasiaNet [6/19/2025 4:14 PM, Alexander Thompson, 57.6K]
It was a completely unsurprising surprise announcement.

In a highly unusual statement issued on June 14, a Saturday, Kazakh authorities said they had selected Russia’s state-owned Rosatom to build Kazakhstan’s first nuclear power plant, binding the country further to its northern neighbor.

“Finally, the spectacle is over,” Kazakh economist Aset Nauryzbaev, who opposed the project, said in a video after the announcement.

The real surprise came later the same day when Almassadam Satkaliyev, the chair of Kazakhstan’s nuclear energy agency, said in an interview that the country would build a second power station, this one likely constructed by a Chinese state company, which had been the runner-up in the bidding on the first plant.

The Kazakh nuclear two-step shows that, despite predictions that Central Asia would drift from Russia after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin keeps finding ways to maintain its influence. But the outcome also illustrates that Central Asian states cannot afford to rebuff China either.

The balancing act between Beijing and Moscow has been a throughline for Kazakh foreign policy in the last decade, while the next decade will show whether Astana can successfully leverage that balance to meet its energy needs without tying itself too closely to either power.

Though Rosatom’s campaign was heavily colored by geopolitical tones, observers say the company may have indeed offered Kazakhstan a good deal.

“In terms of competitive advantages, Rosatom’s proposal really does look like one of the best options for Kazakhstan,” said Shaimerden Chikanayev, a researcher at the ChineseUniversity of Hong Kong who studied the selection process.

Russia already processes much of Kazakhstan’s uranium, the two countries share language and culture, Rosatom has some of the most advanced technology and a portfolio of 19 overseas reactor projects, and the company offered advantageous credit terms and nuclear waste disposal, Chikanayev said in an email to Eurasianet.

“Of course, this project can and will play a certain role as a lever in the relationship between Russia and Kazakhstan,” he said.

Officially, the Kazakh nuclear energy agency said Rosatom will lead an international consortium building the plant, but most experts regard it as highly unlikely that other major, especially western, companies would join.

Kazakhstan’s Soviet-built nuclear plant on the Caspian was decommissioned in 1999 and since then there has been talk of building a new one, though the discussions intensified after President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev came to power in 2019.

Proponents cite the need to reduce Kazakhstan’s energy deficit, which the government predicts could balloon from two gigawatts during peak hours in 2024 to seven gigawatts by 2030, while opponents have raised environmental and cost concerns.

Seventy-one percent of voters approved a referendum last October endorsing the construction of a new nuclear plant, and the Kazakh government published a shortlist of vendors in April, including Rosatom, China National Nuclear Corporation, France’s EDF and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power.

Rosatom is slated to complete the project by 2036, and Kazakhstan will be paying for the plant long after that while further entwining Russia into the country’s energy supply.

It fits into Russia’s larger ambitions in a region increasingly turning toward China and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the world.

In 2023, with Gazprom’s influence on the wane due to the war in Ukraine and western sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a foreign policy document highlighting nuclear power’s role as a diplomatic tool. Subsequently, Central Asia has been a focus of Rosatom’s attention.

Rosatom has secured a contract to build a nuclear power plant in Uzbekistan, and is in discussions with Bishkek about a plant in Kyrgyzstan.

Though Rosatom is not directly under sanctions, they could still drag out the construction timeline, and Russia’s troubles financing three coal-fired power plants under construction in Kazakhstan raise concerns about similar issues with the nuclear station, Chikanayev said. The opacity of the bidding process could also cause legal headaches, he added.

Yet, the consequences of spurning Rosatom may have influenced Astana.

“We still fear the Kremlin,” political analyst Dosym Satpayev said on the Hyperborei YouTube channel after the announcement.

The nuclear energy agency denied politics influenced the decision, saying it was only based on energy security and development, according to its press service.

The pair of reactors will be built in the town of Ulken on the south end of Lake Balkhash, 325 kilometers northwest of Almaty, but how much it will cost and exactly how the financing provided by Russia will look remain unknown.

The price tag will be $15 billion at a minimum, but likely much more, and Kazakhstan will be paying back the Russian loans for a “very, very long time,” probably via electricity rates, Kazakh energy analyst Olzhas Baidildinov said in a June 16 interview.

Many opponents of the Rosatom plant point to the Akkuyu nuclear power plant, which Rosatom is building in Turkey and will own, as a warning, but Astana said in the wake of the announcement that it will not be following that example.

“The owner of the plant will be the Republic of Kazakhstan,” Satkaliyev, the chair of the nuclear energy agency, said in an interview with Vlast, a Kazakh media outlet, June 14.

But picking Rosatom for the plant meant turning down China.

The announcement that Rosatom had beaten out the state-owned China National Nuclear Corporation for the contract fell awkwardly two days before Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Astana for the second China-Central Asia summit.

It was at the first such summit two years ago that China signaled a willingness to make considerable investments in the Central Asian energy sector, Satpayev, the political analyst, pointed out.

“When Rosatom’s interests were lobbied so actively, and Kazakhstan basically rewarded this lobbying, I think that this most likely left a certain unpleasant aftertaste for Beijing,” he said.

Kazakhstan is seeking to smooth things out with the announcement of a second plant, Satpayev said.

Details about the second plant are even more hazy than the first, especially how Kazakhstan will pay for two plants.

A nuclear agency statement on June 16 suggested current arrangement could be undone, if Russia’s help in financing can’t be secured on satisfactory terms. “If we talk about the general contract, it will be concluded after the signing of intergovernmental agreements between Kazakhstan and Russia on the main terms of cooperation and the provision of interstate export financing,” according to the statement.

During the China-Central Asia summit, Kazakh officials spoke almost as if they want to build the plants in tandem, with Deputy Prime Minister Roman Sklyar telling reporters that the second plant might even be completed before the first, depending on the technology used.

“No one will drag this out. By the fall, I think, there could already be some numbers, data, a site,” he said.

A Dark Cloud: No Space for Freedom of Expression in Mirziyoyev’s Uzbekistan (The Diplomat)

The Diplomat [6/18/2025 9:15 AM, Umida Niyazova, 555K]
On June 5, the Samarkand Criminal Court in Uzbekistan denied the release of a 20-year-old man who was convicted a year and a half ago for insulting the president of Uzbekistan online. The young man, whose name has not been disclosed, had posted a single comment two years earlier under a video titled "The President’s Family." His comment "avlodinniga …. Sh.M.Mirziyoyev," which roughly translates from Uzbek as "F… your family, Sh.M.Mirziyoyev" (the original comment also masked the obscene word with dots), became the basis for his prosecution.

According to a linguistic analysis by the Republican Center for Forensic Expertise under the Uzbek Ministry of Justice, the expression contained insults and discredited Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. This analysis formed the basis of the court’s decision to sentence the teenager to two years and six months in a penal colony. This month, after serving part of his sentence, the young man appealed to the court, expressing remorse and asking for his sentence to be replaced with a non-custodial punishment. The court rejected his appeal, stating there were no grounds to alter the sentence.

This case is one of many where social media users and bloggers in Uzbekistan have been criminally prosecuted for their comments about government officials.

Since 2021, insulting the president of Uzbekistan in the media or online has been a criminal offense punishable by corrective labor, restricted freedom, or imprisonment. Analysis of dozens of such cases reveals that this law is applied extremely broadly, covering blogs, social media posts, and even private messages and comments under photos or videos. In fact, enforcing this law in such a manner in most free countries would result in the imprisonment of a large portion of their populations.

Social media in Uzbekistan has become the primary space for accessing information and voicing public concerns. However, while digital access has expanded, so too has the government’s control over online expression. The space that once offered hope for openness and democratization is now heavily restricted by laws and practices that limit freedom of speech on the internet.

A new report by the Uzbek Forum for Human Rights, "A Dark Cloud: No Space for Freedom of Expression in Mirziyoyev’s Uzbekistan," analyzes 16 criminal and administrative cases against bloggers and social media users over the past three years. These cases involved critical and sometimes offensive statements, yet none included direct threats or calls for violence or unrest.

The report finds that Uzbek laws and their enforcement concerning online speech are overly vague and fail to differentiate between defamatory remarks and legitimate criticism of officials. Over the past two years, prosecutions related to social media statements have intensified, with many bloggers still imprisoned at the time of writing. As one local blogger lamented: "President Mirziyoyev’s promises of freedom of speech will lead us all to prison.".

Uzbekistan’s leadership, which previously sought to improve its international image and freedom of speech rankings, now appears to prioritize control of public discourse through the security services over civil liberties. The president’s declared commitment to openness is not reflected in practice, as evidenced by the continued persecution of those exercising their right to freedom of expression.

One striking case is that of social media activist Valijon Kalonov, who has been confined in a psychiatric facility since December 2021. The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention recognized his detention as arbitrary and called for his release in February 2025. Instead of following the recommendation, the authorities recently transferred him to a psychiatric clinic in Samarkand with an even stricter regime.

The relative freedom of expression that emerged in Uzbekistan following the death of dictator Islam Karimov never amounted to genuine freedom. Journalists and bloggers remained aware of unspoken red lines and taboo topics. Those limits now appear to have tightened further. For example, bloggers have reported receiving phone calls ordering them to delete posts about the growing dominance of Chinese businesses or about the arrest of religious bloggers. In one case, the police threatened the parents of a female journalist who had published a critical video report about Chinese businessmen in Uzbekistan. She was ordered by the police to leave the media outlet that published (and later removed) the report.

Ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2024 visit to Uzbekistan, social media users were called or summoned by police and instructed to remove critical posts.

Uzbek authorities seem to be testing the boundaries of criminal punishment by prosecuting virtually any statement that could be perceived as offensive or insulting, regardless of the speaker’s intention or the societal relevance of the topic.

A notable case is that of journalist Akmal Eshonkhonov, who, in April 2025, was found guilty of violating an administrative law on "the dissemination of false information that degrades the dignity of a person or discredits a person." The charges stemmed from two articles published on Eshonkhonov’s website that critically examined the procedure for appointing judges and mentioned convictions of Uzbek judges for bribery. The chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council filed a complaint with the Prosecutor General’s Office, claiming that the articles were aimed at "discrediting judges and undermining public trust in the judiciary." The court based its decision on a state-ordered linguistic analysis, which alleged that the articles contained "discrediting content" – though no evidence was provided to show the information was false or how it discredited the authority of the judiciary. Eshonkhonov was fined the equivalent of $900.

Another example is the prosecution of popular blogger and former Kengash (district council) member Kabul Dusov, who was recently sentenced to five years in prison. Dusov was known for his critical position on Uzbekistan’s education system and specifically targeted the minister and deputy minister of preschool and school education. Although Dusov deleted the initial offensive posts, he was found guilty in November 2024 of criminal charges for insult. He was sentenced to one year of restricted freedom, including travel bans and internet restrictions. In January 2025, Dusov was arrested and sent to a penal colony for "violating the court’s decision" – essentially for using the internet and violating travel restrictions. His arrest came shortly after he submitted a corruption-related complaint concerning the education system to the Prosecutor’s Office. While in detention, additional charges were brought against him, including insulting and defaming education officials and "false denunciation," or knowingly filing a false crime report. On June 16, 2025, the Tashkent Criminal Court found Dusov guilty on all charges and sentenced him to five years and two months in prison.

The evidence used in criminal and administrative cases raises serious concerns for fundamental rights. In speech-related prosecutions, the state frequently relies on political science and linguistic "expert analyses" to claim that language is defamatory or insulting. According to practicing lawyers in Uzbekistan, defendants have no real opportunity to involve independent experts in these cases. While the law technically allows for independent expert input, in practice, only state-appointed experts are heard, and courts show little interest in considering independent opinions. The report concludes that these linguistic analyses often fail to meet international standards on freedom of expression and fair trial rights.

As social media in Uzbekistan continues to serve as one of the last remaining spaces for civic engagement, the persistent targeting of bloggers, journalists, and ordinary users sends a chilling message: critical thought and freedom of expression remain dangerous in Mirziyoyev’s Uzbekistan.

As one popular Uzbek blogger commented, "These days a ‘dark cloud’ is hovering over the public…What could be the purpose of this? To instill fear? If the purpose is to instill fear, isn’t it enough already?".

For now, the only ones benefitting are those who still believe it is possible to convince an international audience, including investors and strategic political partners of Uzbekistan, that Mirziyoyev’s reform process toward democracy, human rights, and rule of law is still on course. For now, the regime appears to be willing to bet their security apparatus and PR strategy will maintain that myth.

Why Uzbekistan Seeks to Establish a West-South Transport Axis (The Diplomat)

The Diplomat [6/18/2025 8:32 AM, Nargiza Umarova, 555K]
Central Asia and the European Union are at present prioritizing the development of trade, economic, and transport links. These areas are interrelated and cannot be considered in isolation.

Europe remains one of the key players in Central Asia. The EU is Uzbekistan’s third-largest trading partner after China and Russia.

Thanks to the GSP+ preference system, Uzbekistan has the opportunity to export more than 6,000 commodity items into the Eurozone duty-free. This contributes to an increase in trade and freight traffic. In 2024, the volume of international freight traffic in Uzbekistan was around 60 million tons. The share of European destinations continues to grow, reflecting the steady increase in mutual trade turnover, which reached $6.4 billion by the end of 2024. Uzbek exports accounted for $1.7 billion of this total. The main export commodity (54 percent) was chemicals, including radioactive elements such as uranium. Germany and France are among Uzbekistan’s ten largest trading partners, and the role of raw materials factor is important here too.

Central Asia and the EU are connected by three transport corridors: the northern route through Russia and Belarus, the middle route through the Caspian Sea, and the southern route through Iran.

The Northern Corridor includes both rail and road routes. Although it is the most developed in terms of infrastructure, its functionality is limited due to anti-Russian sanctions. The Middle Corridor is 2,000 kilometers shorter than the Northern Corridor, but due to its multimodality, it is inferior in terms of freight delivery speed. Nevertheless, its projected carrying capacity is estimated at 25 million tons per year, which promises great prospects for the development of trans-Caspian transportation.

Cargo traffic along the Southern Corridor is the lowest, at up to 1.8 million tons, primarily due to technical issues. Anti-Iran sanctions also have an impact. Despite these difficulties, routes through Iran to Turkiye and Europe have potential for increased development, especially given the construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway and the China-Tajikistan-Uzbekistan highway.

Around 80 percent of all transport along the aforementioned corridors is by rail. However, there is a significant imbalance in the distribution of potential freight flows to Europe among the Central Asian countries. According to recent studies, Kazakhstan accounts for more than 93 percent of the total volume, while Turkmenistan accounts for 3 percent, Uzbekistan for 2.3 percent, Kyrgyzstan for 1.1 percent, and Tajikistan for just 0.03 percent.

Uzbekistan’s involvement in servicing transport and transit flows to Europe is minimal. In order to improve its position in this area, the country is implementing two major transport projects.

The first is the construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, which will shorten the land trade route between East Asia and Europe by 900 kilometers and reduce delivery times by 7-8 days. Consequently, the Southern Corridor will become the shortest monomodal route connecting two global economic centers. It could also branch off to the Middle East (the Persian Gulf countries) and even the African continent.

It should be noted that a few years ago, work began on establishing the China-Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Iran-Turkiye-EU railway corridor, which makes use of Kazakhstan’s transit potential. Active steps are also being taken to develop the multimodal route from China to the EU via Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran. Once the international highway from China to the Uzbek border through Tajikistan is completed, another land route along the China-Europe axis will be established that is shorter than the existing one.

While the launch of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway will reinforce the importance of the southern transit route of the Middle Corridor, it will not be able to compete equally with the Kazakh section, as some experts predict or fear. This is because two transit routes pass through Kazakhstan – the northern and central routes – and both run through relatively flat terrain, unlike the railway line through mountainous Kyrgyzstan. Consequently, improving the Middle Corridor will only enable two Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, to increase their exports of transport services, as they have unimpeded access to the Caspian Sea. For the other republics in the region, this corridor will become one of the additional routes for delivering export cargo to Southern Europe.

The second major project is the construction of the Termez-Mazar-i-Sharif-Kabul-Peshawar railway, with access to the ports of the Indian Ocean. In the future, this Kabul Corridor may be connected to the Northern and Middle Corridors, forming the basis for new intercontinental logistics chains. In the first scenario, countries of Northern Europe, Russia and Belarus will gain land communication with the Indian subcontinent. In the second scenario, states of the South Caucasus, Turkiye, and parts of Europe will have a similar opportunity. In both cases, Uzbekistan will act as a transit hub, thereby strengthening its strategic position in the region.

Unfamiliar calm along Central Asia’s long-disputed borders (Agence France-Presse)

Agence France-Presse [6/20/2025 1:57 AM, Bruno Kalouaz, 931K]
Bus driver Amrullo Yusupov has long faced challenges navigating the winding mountain passes of Central Asia — but a recent historic border agreement has brought calm to the troubled region.

Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan signed in March the last of a series of deals to formalise the long-disputed borders between the countries in the Fergana Valley, a region that has ignited several violent clashes.

"Everything is calm, now that the borders have been demarcated," Yusupov told AFP.

Navigating the maze of Tajik exclaves -- pockets of territory embedded within Kyrgyzstan -- had been a challenge.

"I used to be afraid to drive here at night. The road was a bit problematic," Yusupov said.

The Fergana Valley, which spans the three countries, has seen hundreds of deadly skirmishes, in disputes over access to roads and water, a precious resource in the arid agricultural region.

Local disputes would quickly escalate as troops got involved to protect their citizens and the land on their side of the invisible border.

In brief wars in 2021 and 2022, hundreds of Tajiks and Kyrgyz were killed and wounded, according to official estimates from both sides.

The complicated geography is a legacy of the Soviet Union, with internal borders drawn up based on economic considerations, rather than ethnic, cultural or linguistic dividing lines.

With its collapse, the lines became international frontiers, isolating tens of thousands of people in the exclaves.

Even locals can sometimes be disoriented.

"On the left is Kyrgyzstan and on the right is Tajikistan, yes?" some passengers asked as Yusupov’s bus pulled away from Vorukh, a Tajik exclave the size of Paris.

Linking Vorukh to the rest of Tajikistan, his bus travels along a neutral road that passes through Kyrgyz territory but does not stop there.

"Over the past 30 years, we have had several conflicts with the Tajiks," said Raykhan Isakova, who lives in the neighbouring Kyrgyz village of Kapchygay.

"It was very violent, we suffered heavy losses. All the houses were destroyed," the 60 year-old said of the fighting in 2022.

"But thanks to the authorities, we started again from scratch, houses were built," she added.

When AFP visited the village in 2022, it stood in ruins.

Three years later, it is unrecognisable, completely rebuilt -- unlike some other places.

Although peace has returned, AFP journalists who were given rare access to both sides of the border, saw a heavy military presence.

Fences stood where crossing the street used to mean entering a different country.

Locals say erecting a physical border will help bring security.

"Once the barbed wire is up, the borders will be defined and everyone will be at home. People will know that Tajikistan starts here and Kyrgyzstan there," said Shamshidin Kattabekov, 42, from the Kyrgyz border village of Aksai.

Meanwhile, official checkpoints have reopened for the first time in four years.

"I am happy that the border has reopened so that I can come and see my family," said Aitgul Khojamberdieva, a 58-year-old Tajik citizen.

"My mother and uncle died when the border was closed and we couldn’t go" to the funeral, she told AFP.

The reconciliation between Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan was achieved without mediation from Russia, a rare feat in the post-Soviet space that Moscow still considers its own backyard.

The three presidents sealed the border deals with a pact of "eternal friendship" earlier this year.

Huge portraits of the smiling leaders are on display in Tajikistan and a giant friendship monument has also been erected where the three countries meet.

"Once the border work is finished, we believe that peace will reign," said Ashyrali Erkebayev, head of a community of Kyrgyz border municipalities.

So far, the agreements have led to territory swaps, sections of road declared neutral and guarantees to ensure unhindered access to energy infrastructure.

But locals are still concerned about how an agreement to share water more equitably will work -- a crucial challenge given how exposed the region is to climate change.

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have agreed a deal for access to the Tortkul reservoir, the only source of fresh water in the area, located in Kyrgyzstan.

"Water for crops is a problem," said Isakova, a farmer.

"There was a pipe before which went to Tajikistan," she added. "Everybody just made a hole and took water from there."

Twitter

Afghanistan

Shawn VanDiver
@shawnjvandiver
[6/19/2025 11:03 AM, 33.9K followers, 31 retweets, 71 likes]
ICE detained an Afghan ally who fought alongside our troops—at a courthouse, after he followed every rule. #AfghanEvac just sent this to @DHSgov No more excuses. No more cruelty. If you stand with those who stood with us, read this letter and share it to #StandWithSayed

Jahanzeb Wesa
@JahanzebWesa
[6/19/2025 6:52 PM, 5.9K followers, 10 retweets, 33 likes]
Heartbreaking & alarming: Afghan singer Zalala Hashemi was abducted in Kabul 15 days ago. Her husband, Sayed Mohsen Hashemi, says there’s been no word on her fate, and all efforts to find her have failed. Silence is deadly. Where is Zalala? #WhereIsZalala #Afghanistan #Women

Jahanzeb Wesa
@JahanzebWesa
[6/19/2025 6:48 PM, 5.9K followers, 3 retweets, 6 likes]
1,372 days since Afghan girls were banned from school by Taliban. “Since Taliban’s return, Afghanistan has become prison for us,” says Malahat, a teenage girl banned from school like millions of others. Female education is illegal. That’s new normal in Taliban-ruled regime.

Beth W. Bailey
@BWBailey85
[6/18/2025 6:08 PM, 8.7K followers, 15 retweets, 35 likes]
SIV applicant Afghan ally detained by ICE after immigration court hearing faces uncertain future. My latest @reason https://reason.com/2025/06/18/video-masked-ice-agents-arrest-afghan-ally-following-immigration-court-hearing/

Pakistan

Zalmay Khalilzad
@realZalmayMK
[6/18/2025 12:14 PM, 266.9K followers, 1.9K retweets, 6.2K likes]
It is a great gift and honor that @Potus is bestowing on Pakistan’s General Asim Munir by hosting him for lunch. Besides Indo-Pakistan relations, the General is likely to have the following on his agenda: 1. Get US investment in Pakistan’s minerals via military-owned companies, and general strengthening of trade and economic relations; 2. Get Potus to subcontract the protection of US interests in Afghanistan, including on terror, to the Pakistani military (given the relations between the two countries, a formula for utter disaster); 3. He will offer to be a conduit for communication with China. 4. He would like greater legitimacy and to create the impression that the US endorses his de facto status as ruler-for-life. Although he has gained some popularity and has elevated himself to the rank of Field Marshall, there is widespread opposition to the continued imprisonment of the country’s most popular politician @ImranKhanPTI, on trumped up charges. There are huge economic problems in the country, plus a growing insurgency in the country’s #Baluchistan region.

President Trump knows that the Pakistani military has long played a double game with us. During the years of our military presence in Afghanistan, Pakistan took our assistance and at the same time provided support and sanctuary to those who were killing our forces. Similarly, during the war on terror after 9/11, the Pakistani military selectively helped both us and the al-Qaida terrorists. Where did we find Bin Laden? All cozy in Pakistan near one of Pakistan’s military facilities. And Pakistan still holds Dr. Afidi who helped us find and eliminate Bin Laden.

Bottom line: Gen Asim Munir can not be trusted. #Pakistan @SecDef @SecState @elonmusk #Afghanistan #India

BilawalBhuttoZardari
@BBhuttoZardari
[6/18/2025 8:36 AM, 5.1M followers, 1.2K retweets, 4K likes]
Today, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, Field Marshal Asim Munir, will meet with @realDonaldTrump over lunch, a positive step in Pakistan US relations. Especially given the president’s role in mediating a ceasefire. Following Pakistan’s decisive victory in the recent five-day war, India has regrettably resisted all efforts toward a permanent peace, including US-led diplomacy. Pakistan neither seeks conflict nor are we desperate for dialogue. But we do recognize that peace is in both nations’ interests. There is no military solution to our disputes. India’s weaponization of water, repression in Kashmir, and politicization of terrorism are unsustainable positions. The path forward lies in honest diplomacy - not denial.

Anas Mallick
@AnasMallick
[6/19/2025 3:00 AM, 81.4K followers, 24 retweets, 160 likes]
Pakistan’s Army Chief field Marshal Asim Munir was accompanied by National Security Advisor for his meeting with US Pres who had Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff join -- Discussed Pak - India crisis, Iran - Israel situation, expanding bilateral cooperation -- Field Marshal extended invite to visit Pakistan to Pres Trump on behalf of Govt of Pakistan.

Derek J. Grossman
@DerekJGrossman
[6/19/2025 12:33 PM, 103.8K followers, 90 retweets, 785 likes]
As far as I know, Trump opted for no photo ops with Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir. That won’t satisfy India, however.

Derek J. Grossman
@DerekJGrossman
[6/18/2025 1:50 PM, 103.8K followers, 724 retweets, 3.4K likes]
Wow, my intuition was correct yet again: Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir backed Trump to win the Nobel Peace Prize--and White House confirms it. And THAT mostly explains why Munir gets a private lunch with Trump today at the White House. Good grief.

Brahma Chellaney
@Chellaney
[6/18/2025 11:21 AM, 298.8K followers, 264 retweets, 1.1K likes]
Trump, the pyromaniac posing as a peacemaker, hasn’t abandoned his self-appointed role as mediator in the Indian subcontinent. Without apparently disclosing his planned luncheon with Pakistan’s army chief, he quietly invited Modi to the White House. The back-to-back meetings would have set a diplomatic trap — one Modi sidestepped by citing a prior commitment to travel from the G7 summit in Alberta, Canada, to a state visit in Croatia.

India

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[6/19/2025 12:03 PM, 108.8M followers, 2.7K retweets, 20K likes]
Over the next two days, will be attending programmes in Bihar, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. These programmes cover a wide range of sectors. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2137732

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[6/19/2025 12:03 PM, 108.8M followers, 180 retweets, 419 likes]
In Siwan, several development works will be inaugurated. These include the Vaishali–Deoria railway line project, Vande Bharat Express between Patliputra and Gorakhpur, Sewage Treatment Plants and more.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[6/19/2025 12:03 PM, 108.8M followers, 566 retweets, 1.5K likes]
In Bhubaneswar, I will be attending a programme to mark one year of the BJP Government in the state. Over the last year, numerous pro-people measures have been undertaken, ensuring all-round governance for the people.

Narendra Modi
@narendramodi
[6/19/2025 12:03 PM, 108.8M followers, 555 retweets, 1.5K likes]
On the 21st, will take part in the Yoga Day programme in the beautiful city of Visakhapatnam.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[6/18/2025 11:04 AM, 227.1K followers, 256 retweets, 1.7K likes]
Yesterday, Modi (according to Delhi’s readout) told Trump there was no U.S. mediation during the India-Pakistan conflict. This morning, Trump said, “I stopped the war.” The president-a strong backer of partnership w/India-has arguably become its biggest bilateral tension point.

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[6/18/2025 10:55 AM, 227.1K followers, 41 retweets, 160 likes]
Easy to overlook w/everything else going on-India & Canada have engineered a dramatic diplomatic turnaround. Their leaders suggest they’re prepared to address the Khalistan issue together. A big boost to ties. Trudeau’s departure was the initial offramp. https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/readouts/2025/06/17/prime-minister-carney-meets-prime-minister-india-narendra-modi

Michael Kugelman
@MichaelKugelman
[6/19/2025 9:39 AM, 227.1K followers, 83 retweets, 688 likes]
Based on India’s readout of Trump-Modi call, seems like Delhi wanted to clear the air and set the record straight with Trump, so that the two sides can move on from the last few weeks and get back to pursuing partnership. May be tough, especially given Trump’s lunch guest today.

NSB

Chief Adviser of the Government of Bangladesh
@ChiefAdviserGoB
[6/19/2025 12:29 AM, 180.6K followers, 39 retweets, 471 likes]
NSA meets US Deputy Secretary of State Washington, June 19, 2025: National Security Adviser Dr Khalilur Rahman on Wednesday met with US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau at the State Department in Washington, DC. They discussed the Rohingya issue, ongoing tariff negotiations between Bangladesh and the US, developments in South Asia; and the democratic transition in Bangladesh. Deputy Secretary of State lauded the leadership of Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus at a critical juncture for Bangladesh and reiterated continued US support for Bangladesh. Dr. Rahman separately met Assistant US Trade Representative Brendan Lynch and had fruitful discussions on the agreement between the two countries on reciprocal tariffs.

Chief Adviser of the Government of Bangladesh
@ChiefAdviserGoB
[6/18/2025 1:53 PM, 180.6K followers, 18 retweets, 339 likes]
No Development Project Should Harm Nature: Chief Adviser Dhaka, 18 June 2026 — Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus on Wednesday emphasized the imperative of safeguarding natural ecosystems during the execution of development projects. During a meeting held at the State Guest House Jamuna in Dhaka, he instructed officials to ensure that water bodies remain "unharmed and uninterrupted" throughout the implementation of the ‘Teknaf to Tetulia Integrated Economic Corridor Development’ project, prepared by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The meeting featured presentations by ADB Country Director for Bangladesh, Hoe Yun Jeong, and officials from the Economic Relations Division (ERD), who detailed the vision, strategy, and implementation process of the corridor project. The initiative aims to facilitate inclusive and sustainable economic transformation through an integrated approach to infrastructure, industrial growth, logistics, and regional connectivity along Bangladesh’s southeast-to-northwest transport network. Key attendees included Road Transport and Bridges Adviser Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan, Chief Adviser’s Special Envoy on International Affairs Lutfey Siddiqi, Principal Coordinator for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Affairs Lamiya Morshed, and Principal Secretary Siraj Uddin Mia.

Chief Adviser Yunus underscored three critical focal points for the project: preservation of water bodies, consideration of population distribution, and enhancement of international connectivity. "We must remember that Bangladesh is a delta. We don’t want to interrupt our water flow. Our first priority is our rivers. We would go all the way in a different direction if it’s necessary," he stated. "We must keep in mind the location of our population when it comes to any construction. Ours is a flood-prone country. So, we need to work in a way that ensures the river doesn’t get clogged," the Chief Adviser said.

"We must avoid building roads in locations that would worsen the flood situation. During floods, people try to find safety on roads, bridges, and railways. So, it’s not just a bridge; it’s people’s safety as well," he added. "And the third thing is international connectivity. We want to create an investment hub here. So, make sure that roads don’t stop here. We also want to connect neighboring countries, including Nepal and Bhutan. Because that’s the future," Professor Yunus said. He further stated, "We are the children of nature. We don’t want to destroy it. We want to live in it."

To ensure environmental considerations are integral to the project, the Chief Adviser directed the team to include water experts and develop a comprehensive master plan. Adviser Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan highlighted the importance of environmentally conscious development. "We need to build our projects without harming nature. We’ve seen the negative consequences, like the massive road in the Haor region that ultimately devastated the local ecosystem and led to severe flooding for residents," he said. The ‘Teknaf to Tetulia Integrated Economic Corridor Development’ project represents a significant step towards sustainable infrastructure development in Bangladesh, balancing economic growth with ecological preservation.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[6/19/2025 8:25 AM, 113.8K followers, 149 retweets, 157 likes]
President Dr @MMuizzu inspects the 4,000-unit housing site currently under development in Hulhumalé Phase II. He was also briefed on the progress of the unit allocation process during the visit.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[6/19/2025 5:42 AM, 113.8K followers, 107 retweets, 109 likes]
First Lady Madam @sajidhaamohamed participates in the 7th Edition of the Merck Foundation First Ladies Initiative Summit (MFFLI) Committee Meeting. During the meeting, the First Lady highlighted the need to tackle pressing social issues, including cyberbullying of children, juvenile justice and delinquency, and food security.

The President’s Office, Maldives
@presidencymv
[6/19/2025 1:55 AM, 113.8K followers, 92 retweets, 95 likes]
Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China pays courtesy call on the Vice President

PMO Nepal
@PM_nepal_
[6/18/2025 11:39 AM, 721.6K followers, 2 retweets, 15 likes]
The first meeting of the High-Level Governance Reform Commission, chaired by the Rt. Hon. PM KP Sharma Oli, was held today at the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, Singha Durbar.

PMO Nepal
@PM_nepal_
[6/18/2025 11:39 AM, 721.6K followers]
The meeting discussed the commission’s objectives, scope of work, and priority agendas. It was decided to soon convene a full meeting by nominating representatives from political parties, subject experts, and the private sector.

Karu Jayasuriya
@KaruOnline
[6/20/2025 12:29 AM, 53.6K followers, 1 retweet, 3 likes]
The public witnessed both dignity and discord at recent Local Govt openings. Some called for unity; others began with hostility and division. True service to the people requires teamwork. Party leaders must guide members toward collaboration—not confrontation.

Central Asia

Zalmay Khalilzad
@realZalmayMK
[6/18/2025 8:55 AM, 266.9K followers, 12 retweets, 79 likes]
#China further strengthens its influence in Central Asia. #USA #Kazakhstan #Uzbekistan #Tajikistan #Turkmenistan #Kyrgyzstan

Joanna Lillis
@joannalillis
[6/20/2025 2:07 AM, 28.6K followers, 4 likes]
A great pleasure to take part in lively discussions about the media landscape in the Central Asia Mongolia Caucasus Afghanistan region at CAMCA Regional Forum in Ulanbaatar with @AigiTurgunbaeva @uundaa and others #CAMCA2025Mongolia

Joanna Lillis
@joannalillis
[6/19/2025 2:36 AM, 28.6K followers, 5 retweets, 5 likes]
A timely listen from the @capsunlock_org podcast hosted by @Peter__Leonard and @tlegensk on relations between #CentralAsia and #Mongolia as the CAMCA regional forum meets in Ulanbaatar #CAMCA2025Mongolia https://open.substack.com/pub/havli/p/one-steppe-beyond-mongolia-eyes-central?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=awgla

MFA Kazakhstan
@MFA_KZ
[6/19/2025 8:03 AM, 55.8K followers, 1 retweet, 6 likes]
Almaty hosts the launch of the UN Global Compact Multicounty Network for Central Asia at the “UN Plaza”

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[6/19/2025 12:30 PM, 218.1K followers, 5 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev visited a new agritourism complex in #Kashkadarya region. Before introducing the drip irrigation system, the area was arid, now transformed into a green zone. A visiting French agronomist monitors the seedlings’ development and teaches local youth on agrarian affairs and market requirements. The complex also has a restaurant and a hotel to attract tourists.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[6/19/2025 1:59 AM, 218.1K followers, 3 retweets, 16 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev reviewed the newly built small hydroelectric power plant near the #Hisarak reservoir in #Shahrisabz district, using local resources. Future projects include constructing 416 micro-hydroelectric power plants with kinetic turbines with a total capacity of 12 megawatts over the next two years.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[6/19/2025 10:30 AM, 218.1K followers, 18 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev visited the Gissar mountains in #Shakhrisabz district to assess tourism potential. He inspected the improvements in the international tourist centre “#Miraki”, where along the Aksu River, a 10-kilometre eco-trail for walking and cycling has been laid, with recreational, sporting and commercial facilities.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[6/19/2025 7:34 AM, 218.1K followers, 15 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev visited “Yangi Uzbekiston” residential massif in Yakkabag district, featuring modern housing, green spaces, public areas and an eco-market. It was instructed to apply this development model to other district centers.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[6/19/2025 6:35 AM, 218.1K followers, 13 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev reviewed the activities of a newly established multidisciplinary cardiological center in #Shakhrisabz, equipped with modern technology and staffed by top specialists. The center introduced changes to both treatment standards and their quality, setting an example for healthcare transformation across the country

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[6/19/2025 4:37 AM, 218.1K followers, 3 retweets, 33 likes]
During his train trip from #Karshi city to #Shakhrisabz, President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev had a sincere talk with the public representatives of #Kashkadarya region focused on the course of reforms, living conditions of the population and issues concerning the citizens.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[6/19/2025 3:20 AM, 218.1K followers, 16 likes]
Today President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev arrived in #Kashkadarya region and started his trip with visiting “Alp texno servis” enterprise specialized in electronics. The enterprise is export-oriented and is contributing to the global supply chain, with plans to expand manufacturing in the coming years.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[6/18/2025 2:22 PM, 218.1K followers, 2 retweets, 29 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev visited the “Batu Export” enterprise in #Parkent district. This modern project was implemented with foreign investment, engaged in the processing of fruits and vegetables. To stimulate export activities, financial support and tax preferences are envisioned for enterprises.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[6/18/2025 10:30 AM, 218.1K followers, 3 retweets, 26 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev visited #Kumushkon mahalla to review the tourism potential and activities of newly built guest houses. Highly appreciating the improvement, he emphasized the importance of spreading similar initiatives in other regions of the country attractive for tourists.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s Press-service
@president_uz
[6/18/2025 8:17 AM, 218.1K followers, 5 retweets, 25 likes]
President Shavkat #Mirziyoyev reviewed construction progress at the “Tashkent-Eastern” airport, aimed at providing fast, safe, and modern air travel. It will become a key transport hub for Tashkent and the city of New Tashkent, and serve for tourism development in Tashkent region, expanding opportunities for international visits and business trips.

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[6/19/2025 12:27 PM, 24.4K followers, 3 retweets, 5 likes]
Uzbekistan: Last month the lemon price was 32,000 UZS ($2.48) per kilo. A year ago, it was around 17,000 UZS ($1.35).

Navbahor Imamova
@Navbahor
[6/18/2025 1:47 PM, 24.4K followers, 4 retweets, 16 likes]
Don’t expect any miracles, says Uzbekistan’s embattled leading human rights defender Abdurakhmon Tashanov. But what miracle, really? Just a sign that the courts act independently would be a breath of fresh air for those seeking justice. The appeals court in Tashkent today upheld the sentence against Tashanov, who leads the Ezgulik Human Rights Society, ordering him to pay thousands of dollars for questioning the integrity of the UZ legal establishment.

{End of Report}

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