The US has rejected Pakistan’s plea to facilitate talks with India and pressed for the bilateral engagement between the two South Asian neighbours, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said.
Pakistan wants the US to facilitate talks with India as the two nations are not engaging bilaterally, the top Pakistani diplomat told a Washington audience on Wednesday. “When we asked the US, to play facilitating role...Why do we ask?
Simply because we are not engaging bilaterally. And that bilateral disengagement is…a distraction,” Qureshi said in response to a question at the US Institute of Peace, a US Congress-funded top American think-tank.
“We want to focus, we want to move on the western side of the border, which we are not being able to because we have to watch our back from eastern side (of the border with India). That is not a healthy situation to be in,” he said.
“Now can you (United States) facilitate (the talks)? The answer from them is no. They wanted bilaterally. But there is no bilateral movement,” Qureshi said, a day after he had meetings with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton, during which he raised the issue only to be pushed back by the Trump administration.
India is opposed to any third country mediation in its relations with Pakistan. Pakistan has continuously sought mediation to sort out the differences, including over Kashmir.
Qureshi warned that the absence of bilateral talks with India could lead to escalation of tension between the two countries. “If that lack of facilitation leads to escalation and some of the statements that have come out of late have not been very helpful,” the Pakistani foreign minister said in an apparent reference to the remarks by Indian leaders.