Eurasia

Pakistan has stated that the Kashmir dispute is the core issue that remains unresolved between India and Pakistan. Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesperson Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry expressed disappointment over the comments made by India’s External Affairs Minister on the status of Jammu and Kashmir in the Indian media.

The U.S. has quietly decided to release more than $1.6 billion in military and economic aid to Pakistan that was suspended when relations between the two countries disintegrated over the covert raid that killed Osama bin Laden and deadly U.S. airstrikes against Pakistani soldiers.

A female suicide bomber blew herself up on a city bus in southern Russia on Monday, killing six people and injuring about 30, officials said. The attack in Volgograd added to security fears ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

The European Union’s General Affairs Council has confirmed the opening of Chapter 22, on regional policies, with Turkey, in a move welcomed by the EU’s commissioner for enlargement Stefan Füle. 

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh failed Monday to strike a long-delayed nuclear power deal with Russia during talks with President Vladimir Putin that also focused on big arms and energy deals. Singh is using one of his last major foreign trips as prime minister before 2014 general elections

Bulgaria has asked for an additional EUR 6 M in order to cope with the ongoing refugee influx, Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev revealed on Monday. Yovchev, who attended an emergency cabinet sitting over the refugee crisis, told reporters

Faced with a depleting fleet of submarines, India is expected to acquire on lease a nuclear submarine from Russia, a deal for which may be finalised during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit there on Sunday. The move to acquire the second nuclear submarine from Russia comes two months after the …

The US will use a Romanian airbase on the Black Sea as a transit point for its troops leaving Afghanistan as it winds up operations at another base in Kyrgyzstan, the Pentagon said. The agreement on using the Mihail Kogalniceanu airbase was reached at a meeting at the Pentagon yesterday between US Defence Secretary Chuck …

The US condemned Syrian regime for its siege of suburbs in Damascus, calling on government “to allow immediate and unfettered humanitarian access to these areas,” particularly on Muadamiyet Al-Cham, where residents have been without “basic necessities” for nearly a year.

Recent developments in Egypt, Libya and Syria are on the agenda of the formal meeting of EU Foreign Ministers in Luxembourg on Monday. According to EU sources, EU High Representative Catherine Ashton will brief the ministers about her recent trip to Cairo.