Pashtun people

Afghanistan has appreciated Turkey's continued support and efforts for the peace process in the war-ravaged country, an official said on Jan. 29.

A passenger plane crashed in Ghazni province in eastern Afghanistan, the BBC reports.

According to preliminary data, 83 passengers were on board the aircraft. Local government officials confirmed that the plane crashed in Ghazni province, saying the accident happened near the area of Deh Yak.

Afghanistan's incumbent President, Ashraf Ghani, won a slim majority of votes in a Sept. 28 election, delayed preliminary results showed on Dec. 22, in a poll that plunged the country into political uncertainty.

Turkey has always played a constructive and key role in NATO's Afghanistan mission since 2003, the alliance's senior representative to Kabul, Sir Nicholas Kay, said in an interview with Hürriyet Daily News at the NATO headquarters in Brussels.

An explosion near an election rally attended by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani killed 24 people and injured 31 others, a health official said, but Ghani was unhurt according to an aide.

The attack in Kabul targeted Romania's Embassy there and the Romanian employee who died to save the others was born in 1976 and was part of the security team of the diplomatic mission, Foreign Affairs Minister Ramona Manescu said Tuesday.

A representative of the diplomatic mission of Romania in Kabul has died, and another was seriously injured following the terrorist attack that occurred Monday night, in Kabul, Afghanistan, the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) informs.

"We can't all succeed, when half of us are held back" said wisely Malala Yousafzai, then a 16-year-old women's and children's right activist, in her first historic speech at the United Nations in 2013. A simple equation.

The U.S. peace envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad has met his Russian counterpart in the Turkish capital for talks on efforts to end the 17-year war in Afghanistan.

The founder of Afghanistan's much-feared Haqqani network, a former U.S. ally turned fierce enemy, has died after years of ill health, a Taliban spokesman said Tuesday. Jalaluddin Haqqani was 72.