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According to a senior diplomat in the region and another source familiar with the matter, the CIA Chief William Burns secretly met with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar.The meeting was first reported by The Washington Post. The news comes as US President Joe Biden is expected to decide whether to extend the Aug. 31 deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from the country amid growing pressure from key allies.That expected decision comes as thousands desperately await evacuation in the wake of the militant group’s rapid takeover of the country.The Taliban have warned any delay in the withdrawal would cross a...

CIA Director William Burns held a secret meeting with the Taliban head Abdul Ghani Baradar in Kabul on Monday, the Washington Post reported. According to the WP, this is the first face-to-face meeting between the Taliban and Biden administration since Kabul's fall on August 15, 2021. President Biden’s decision to send CIA director for talks with the Taliban group comes amid a effort to evacuate people from Kabul airport in what the Biden described as “one of the largest, most difficult airlifts in history.” The White House reported that the US has so far evacuated about 48,000 people from Afghanistan...

Congress notified that CIA inspector general has received allegations from fund-raiser Imaad Zuberi, including targeting of U.S. lawmakers and misuse of news organization for spy operation. Imaad Zuberi, a major Democratic fundraiser facing 12 years in prison, has filed an extraordinary complaint with the CIA's chief watchdog alleging he witnessed "flagrant problems, abuses, violations of law" while working as an asset for U.S. intelligence, according to documents and interviews. Zuberi, of Los Angeles, recently hired the CIA's retired acting general counsel Robert J. Eatinger Jr. to review his case and help to appeal his conviction on a plea deal with...

William J. Burns, who is President Joe Biden’s nominee for director of the CIA, is president of a think tank that has received up to $2 million from a Chinese businessman as well as from a think tank with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party. As president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Burns also invited nearly a dozen congressional staffers to attend a junket to China, where they met with a communist party operative and a president of a Chinese front group. Burns, who was paid $540,580 last year as president of Carnegie, will appear before the...

President-elect Joe Biden has announced that he's nominating former Deputy Secretary of State William Burns to be his CIA director, replacing Gina Haspel, who was the first woman to run the agency. "Bill Burns is an exemplary diplomat with decades of experience on the world stage keeping our people and our country safe and secure," Biden said in a statement. "He shares my profound belief that intelligence must be apolitical and that the dedicated intelligence professionals serving our nation deserve our gratitude and respect. Ambassador Burns will bring the knowledge, judgment, and perspective we need to prevent and confront threats...

Emails released by the State Department on Friday show that Hillary Clintons longtime friend Sidney Blumenthal reached out to her on behalf of a former United Kingdom diplomat who was interested in setting up secret channels between insurgents and governments. Clinton was receptive to the idea which came via Blumenthal from Jonathan Powell, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blairs chief of staff. (Quote) Hillary, Jonathan Powell has launched a new NGO that has already initiated some very interesting work below the radar, (Unquote) Blumenthal wrote in the March 18, 2012 email. (Quote)Sid We are trying to replicate what we did...

Hillary Clinton exchanged nearly two-dozen top secret emails from her unsecured, private server with three senior aides, the State Department revealed in documents released to VICE News late Friday. The 22 emails were sent and received by Clinton in 2011 and 2012. Clinton discussed classified information with her deputy chief of staff, Jacob Sullivan, her chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, and Deputy Secretary of State William Burns. A majority of the top secret emails are email chains between Sullivan and Clinton. This is the first time the State Department has revealed the identities of the officials who exchanged classified information...

Hillary Clinton continued sending classified information even after leaving the State Department, The Post has exclusively learned. On May 28, 2013, months after stepping down as secretary of state, Clinton sent an email to a group of diplomats and top aides about the “123 Deal” with the United Arab Emirates.

(Full title): The Hillary email scandal keeps getting uglier: 3 key aides got messages clearly marked ‘Top Secret’ Emails marked “top secret” were sent from Hillary Clinton’s private server to the email addresses of three of her top aides. They included 22 such emails in seven email chains sent to Jacob Sullivan, Cheryl Mills, and William Burns, according to State Department documents obtained by Vice News on Friday. The 22 emails were originally held back from emails received by Vice News in response to a 2015 Freedom of Information Act request it made because releasing them to the public would...

A recent article by David Samuels at the New York Times Magazine, based on an interview with Obama's foreign policy guru Ben Rhodes, purported to explain how, and about what, the Obama administration lied to get public support for the Iran Scam. According to the article, the principal Obama lie involved who was the Iranian president when the negotiations with Iran began. It's much deeper and worse than that. As Paul Harvey would say, “Here’s “the rest of the story.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uogp40PeddI Iranian President Rouhani was elected on June 15, 2013 and assumed office on August 3d. According to Rhodes, negotiations started...

Top spokespeople for US President Barack Obama's administration on Monday night echoed warnings that a release of classified information on Iran talks would be a "betrayal," after an unnamed official was quoted saying Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will detail the deal being formed with Iran in his US Congress address Tuesday. Earlier on Monday an Israeli official said Israel is familiar with the emerging agreement with Iran and that Netanyahu will elaborate on it in his congressional address, sparking US Secretary of State John Kerry to warn against revealing details - despite his having claimed a week ago that Israel...

The first senior U.S. official to visit Egypt since the army toppled its elected president was snubbed by both Islamists and their opponents on Monday. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns arrived in a divided capital where both sides are furious at the United States, the superpower which supports Egypt with $1.5 billion in annual aid, mostly for the army that deposed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi two weeks ago. Crisis in the Arab world's most populous state, which has a peace treaty with Israel and controls the strategic Suez Canal, has alarmed allies in the region and the West. Thousands...

support on Saturday for international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi but insisted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's exit cannot be a precondition for a deal to end the country's conflict. A Foreign Ministry statement following talks on Friday with the United States and Brahimi, whom the Syrian government has labelled "flagrantly biased", reiterated calls for an end to violence in Syria, where more than 60,000 people have been killed since March 2011. At the meeting in Geneva with Brahimi and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov "expressed unfailing support for Brahimi's mission as the U.N.-Arab...

William J. Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs Statement before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Washington, DC September 17, 2008 Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar, Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Georgia crisis and its implications, particularly for our relationship with Russia. The causes of this conflict – particularly the dispute between Georgia and its breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia – are complex, with mistakes and miscalculations on all sides. But key facts are clear: Russia’s intensified pressure and provocations against Georgia – combined with a serious Georgian miscalculation – have resulted...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that the United States' participation in the latest round of nuclear talks is a step toward recognizing Tehran's right to acquire nuclear technology. A senior diplomat from the U.S. joined envoys from five other world powers in Switzerland at Saturday's talks on Iran's nuclear program. Ahmadinejad told thousands of supporters gathered in the southern Iranian town of Yasouj that U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns spoke politely and in a dignified manner. "It was a step toward recognizing the rights of the Iranian nation, toward justice, toward repairing your image in the world, toward...

The Bush administration's decision to send a top U.S. diplomat, William Burns, to meet with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator at a European Union-led meeting in Switzerland is a victory for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The White House insists the move does not signify a change in policy toward Tehran. Washington has vowed it will not negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program until it temporarily suspends uranium enrichment. The White House claims the meeting is "a one-time U.S. participation," and that Mr. Burns - the State Department's third-highest ranking diplomat - will only "listen, not negotiate." This is irrelevant. The...

TEHRAN — Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili on Friday expressed optimism that weekend talks attended for the first time by the United States over their nuclear standoff would be constructive, provided Washington came with the right approach. "What is important for us is with what approach they come to the talks. If it is with a constructive approach, and that they refrain from past mistakes, then for sure we will have constructive talks," he was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency before leaving Tehran for Geneva.... And in a major policy shift by Washington, US Under-secretary...

The US plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in 30 years as part of a remarkable turnaround in policy by President George Bush. The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a US interests section - a halfway house to setting up a full embassy. The move will see US diplomats stationed in the country. ~ snip ~

George Bush U-turn opens way to nuclear talks between US and Iran Tim Reid in Washington President Bush is sending a top US diplomat to meet Iran’s nuclear negotiator this weekend, a major break with his hardline stance towards Tehran and the closest contact between the countries since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. In a significant departure from Mr Bush’s long-standing refusal to talk to Tehran until it has abandoned its nuclear enrichment programme, William Burns, the Under-Secretary of State and America’s third most senior diplomat, will travel to Switzerland to attend talks between Iranian and European officials on Saturday.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Experts said the White House had appeared to undertake a major shift in its hardline stance toward Tehran when it announced that a senior US diplomat would attend international nuclear talks with Iran.In the highest-ranking meeting between the two foes in three decades, Under Secretary of State William Burns is scheduled to attend the Saturday talks with Iran on a "one-time" mission to underline US conditions for ending the atomic stalemate.In Tehran, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Iran was ready for negotiations over the nuclear crisis but warned it would not step over any "red...