Can G-8 confab solve Af-Pak problems?
By Salman Ansari Javid This Thursday Italy will be the host of the Regional Conference on Afghanistan and Pakistan as part of a G-8 foreign ministers summit. The main agenda of the meeting will be security in Afghanistan and Pakistan, border control, and drug trafficking. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini sent an official invitation to his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki. In a press conference on Monday morning, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said that Iran will announce its response to Mr. Frattini in the near future. Last week, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev held a trilateral meeting to tackle regional issues with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in Yekaterinburg, Russia. Last May, Tehran hosted a trilateral summit in which the presidents of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan signed an agreement called the Tehran Statement, which was designed to bolster re
