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Thursday March 28, 2024

Fury in India over Trump’s Kashmir mediation offer

By APP & AFP
July 24, 2019

WASHINGTON/NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday expressed his surprise at the Indian reaction to President Donald Trump’s offer for mediation to bring Pakistan and India to dialogue table for resolving Kashmir conflict, which had held the subcontinent hostage for 70 years.

“Generations of Kashmiris have suffered & are suffering daily and need conflict resolution,” said the Prime Minister in a series of tweets.

Earlier on Tuesday, India’s foreign minister issued a strenuous denial to an infuriated opposition in parliament, after US President Trump said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had invited him to mediate in the bloody conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir. While Pakistan has often sought third-party mediation in the decades-old dispute which has cost tens of thousands of lives, the idea is anathema to India, which has always insisted the issue can only be resolved bilaterally.

Trump set off a political storm in India by claiming during a meeting in Washington on Monday with Prime Minister Imran Khan that Modi had asked him two weeks ago to mediate in the Kashmir dispute.

“I’d like to categorically assure the house that no such request was made by the prime minister to the US president,” Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told the Indian parliament, barely able to make his voice heard over the opposition tumult. Jaishankar insisted the conflict could only be settled bilaterally and that Pakistan had to end alleged “cross-border terrorism” before any talks.

Indian opposition leaders demanded that Modi make a personal statement to parliament to confirm that there was no change in New Delhi’s longstanding policy of only direct talks with Islamabad.

Some US politicians quickly distanced themselves from Trump’s comments. Brad Sherman, a Democratic Congressman and member of the House foreign affairs committee, said he apologised to the Indian ambassador in Washington for Trump’s statement.

“Everyone knows PM Modi would never suggest such a thing. Trump’s statement is amateurish and delusional. And embarrassing,” he tweeted.

The State Department also sought to calm the storm. “While Kashmir is a bilateral issue for both parties to discuss, the Trump administration welcomes #Pakistan and #India sitting down and the United States stands ready to assist,” tweeted Alice Wells, the Acting Assistant Secretary of the department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs.