The Obama administration has made it clear that it will not seek to broker any dialogue between India and Pakistan on the sensitive Kashmir issue, stressing that there is no change in the US policy on this score.
In comments made just ahead of Secretary of State John Kerry’s arrival in Islamabad, a senior American official said: “There’s no change in policy in terms of where we are on that, which is that we do not see ourselves or seek to be in the middle of any conversation between India and Pakistan on Kashmir.”
It is another matter that despite the repeated rejections of any third-party mediation on its part, successive Governments in Pakistan have sought to involve the US.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said relations with India should be like that of two neighbours, with focus on trade and business, according to PTI.
While stating that Washington is certainly “very supportive of moves that India and Pakistan have made to normalise relations,” the official stated categorically: “But we are external actors in this.”
Commenting on the “great strides in normalisation on the economic side” in last few years, the official expressed that this has “paved the way for better and more constructive conversations on the political side,” adding: “So we’ll see where that continues to lead.”
“As Kerry said when he was in India a month ago, he called on Indians to continue the process of facilitation, as well as Pakistanis to do things like provide MFN status to India. I’m sure that this will be part of the conversations that we continue to have,” the official noted, as per a transcript released by the State Department.
The official expressed that Nawaz Sharif “has already begun outreach to India with good cooperation on the Indian side as well in trying to jump-start the normalisation process.” Meanwhile, Agencies added that Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday invited Nawaz Sharif to US for talks with President Barack Obama.
On Pakistan’s refusal to give up its use of proxies through certain domestic terrorist groups in the Indo-Pak context, the US official indicated that this subject would be a part of the conversation with Islamabad. “As we’ve said to them in the past, fostering or helping in any way to provide some sort of base for extremism is not in any of our interests, including in Pakistan’s interest,” the official said.
He added, “We’ll have to see where the new Government is on this and what they’re willing to do as part of their broader efforts at promoting stability. One of the reasons we want to have to this conversation face to face and see how far we can move this forward.”