• Trump says US trying to get Bagram airbase back.
• Trump, Starmer sign major tech deal boosting AI cooperation.
• Trump hails America’s “unbreakable bond” with Britain.

The United States is trying to get Bagram air base in Afghanistan back, President Donald Trump said on Thursday during a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

The historic Soviet-built airstrip was the main base for American forces in Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001, attacks, up until their 2021 withdrawal led to a takeover by the Taliban movement.

“We’re trying to get it back,” Trump said, referring to Bagram, citing what he called its strategic location near China. “We want that base back.”

Less than a month after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre, the US launched a massive attack on war-torn Afghanistan and within weeks its forces toppled down the Taliban-led government in Kabul.

After 20 years of Afghan invasion, the US-led Nato troops left Afghanistan in 2021. The US military death toll in the Afghan war since 2001 was roughly 2,500. Soon after the US pullout, the Taliban fighters regained control in Afghanistan in September 2021.

‘Unbreakable bond’

Addressing the joint presser, Trump hailed America’s “unbreakable bond” with Britain as he and PM signed a huge tech deal on the second day of the US president’s pomp-filled state visit.

A day after King Charles III treated Trump to a day of royal pageantry at Windsor Castle, Trump flew to Starmer’s Chequers country residence for talks on thorny issues, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

But Britain’s work in wooing the unpredictable Trump on his second state visit seemed to have paid off as he and Starmer signed the partnership, boosting ties in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and nuclear energy.

At the signing ceremony attended by a host of US tech CEOs, Labour leader Starmer said he and Republican Trump were “leaders who genuinely like each other.”

“It is the biggest investment package of its kind in British history by a country mile,” he added.

Trump said the deal was “very big”, and added of US relations with key NATO ally Britain that “it’s an unbreakable bond we have, regardless of what we’re doing today.”

The deal comes on the back of pledges of a £150 billion ($205 billion) of investment into the UK from US giants including Microsoft, Google, and Blackstone.

Trump had earlier said goodbye to King Charles at Windsor, calling him a “great gentleman and a great king” as he left the castle following a lavish state banquet, carriage ride, and military flypast.

The US embassy in New Delhi has revoked and subsequently denied visas for some Indian business executives and corporate leaders based on their involvement in trafficking fentanyl precursors, the embassy said in a statement on Thursday.

Fentanyl precursors refer to the basic or parent chemicals that form fentanyl, a leading cause of US overdose deaths.

The statement from the embassy did not name the people affected, but a spokesperson said they were Indian nationals.

Indian government officials have been closely cooperating with US counterparts to combat the challenge of drug trafficking, the US embassy added in its statement.

India’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment on the US visa measures.

US President Donald Trump, whose punitive 50% tariffs on Indian imports hurt bilateral ties, has previously imposed additional levies on imports from China, Mexico and Canada, saying they facilitated the flow of fentanyl into the US.

In a statement to US Congress this week, Trump listed India as one of 23 major drug transit or illicit drug-producing countries, though he added the presence of any country on the list was not necessarily a reflection of its government’s counter-drug efforts.

Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Defense, Prince Khalid bin Salman, on Thursday reaffirmed the strong alliance between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, declaring the two nations as one united front against any aggressor.

On social media platform X, Prince Khalid bin Salman stated: “KSA and Pakistan. One front against any aggressor. Always and forever.”

The announcement follows the signing of a “Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement” between Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and Prime Minister, Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, on Wednesday.

The agreement explicitly states that “any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both.”

A joint statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office highlighted the significance of the pact.

“This agreement, which reflects the shared commitment of both nations to enhance their security and to achieving security and peace in the region and the world, aims to develop aspects of defense cooperation between the two countries and strengthen joint deterrence against any aggression.

The agreement states that any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both,” a joint statement shared by PM Office Media Wing said.

The two sides reviewed the historic and strategic relations between both countries, and a number of topics of common interest.

The prime minister expressed his sincere gratitude and appreciation to Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud for the warm welcome and generous hospitality extended to him and his accompanying delegation.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also received a warm gesture of friendship as Royal Saudi Air Force F-15 fighter jets escorted his aircraft upon entry into Saudi airspace.