U.N. chief offers support for resumption of Indo-Pak talks

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed the resumption of India-Pakistan diplomacy and offered his support for holding talks.

Asked by a reporter Friday about the on-again, off-again interactions between the two South Asian neighbors, Mr. Ban’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said, “Advice of the secretary general would always be for ‘on’ in order to support the talks.”

“Obviously, there are circumstances that are involved,” Dujarric said, “but he has been supportive of the dialogue between the leaders of Pakistan and India to resolve the outstanding issues.”

Talks between the Foreign Secretaries of the two countries were scheduled to take place Friday, but were put off to “the very near future,” according to Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup. Foreign secretaries S. Jaishankar of India and Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry of Pakistan spoke by phone Thursday about rescheduling the talks.

The talks, planned after Prime Minister Narendra Modi reset diplomacy following meetings with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Paris and in Lahore, hung in the balance after a terrorist attack on an Indian Air Force base in Pathankot on January 2.

On Wednesday, Pakistan announced a crackdown on Jaish-e-Mohammad, the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation suspected of being behind the attack.

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U.S. allies will not relent in fight against Islamic State, says Obama

U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday said the United States and its allies would not relent in the fight against Islamic State extremists and would hunt down their leaders and cut off the group's financing.

“Destroying [Islamic State] is not only a realistic goal, were going to get it done,” he said ata a news conference after a meeting of Asian leaders in Malaysia.

“We will destroy them. We will take back land they are currently in, take out their financing, hunt down leadership, dismantle their networks, supply lines and we will destroy them.”

Mr. Obama said it "would be helpful" if Russia directed its focus on tackling Islamic State and he hoped Moscow would agree to a leadership transition in Syria that meant its president stepping down.

Ban urges Russia, U.S. to cooperate on terrorism

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that he has urged Russia and the United States to cooperate on rooting out terrorism.

"All these terrorists and ideology extremists should be defeated in the name of humanity," he said at the annual East Asia Summit this year hosted in Kuala Lumpur.

"In that regard, we need to unite. We need to show global solidarity to address the common enemy of ISIL, Daesh, some other extremists and terrorist groups," he said, referring to Islamic State.

Mr. Obama said at the same summit the United States and its allies would not relent in the fight to combat Islamic State extremists and would hunt down their leaders and cut off the group's financing.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday he wanted global cooperation to combat terrorism after Islamist militants killed 19 people, including six Russians, in an attack on a luxury hotel in Mali.

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