Pakistan urges US to help ease Kashmir tension, inject sanity on India side

Pakistan called on the Trump administration to do more to help ease tensions after India revoked autonomy in the disputed Muslim-majority state of Kashmir, a decision that has inflamed tensions between the two Asian powers.

“The US could do and the US must do more to help defuse this situation and to perhaps inject some more sanity on the Indian side," Asad Khan, Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, said in an interview on Friday in Washington with Bloomberg News editors and reporters. “We would expect that from all our friends. It really is a question of principle."

Pakistan’s always strained relations with its neighbor are being put to a new test after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended seven decades of autonomy for the disputed state of Kashmir. Kashmir, in the Himalayas, has been divided between India and Pakistan since independence from British rule, and is claimed by both. Two of the nations’ three wars were fought over the territory.

The US so far has largely held off from taking a stance on India’s action. Asked Thursday about India’s move, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said only that US policy toward Kashmir hasn’t changed and that the US is “incredibly engaged in southeast Asia.”

While Khan criticized the tepid response from the US, he was quick to point out that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan “really hit it off very well” with President Donald Trump during his visit to Washington last month. Trump made an off-the-cuff offer then to mediate on Kashmir, an idea India quickly rejected.