As South Asia faces threat of another Pakistan-India standoff, Washington has asked the two nuclear armed neighbors to deescalate tensions through dialogue.
“We strongly encourage in all of our dealings with either India and or Pakistan stronger relations between the two countries. It’s clearly in the security interests of the region that they work to deescalate tensions and that they have dialogue,” State Department Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner said.
He was replying to a question in the context of concerns expressed during a Capitol Hill hearing where participants favored Washington playing a mediation to avert threat of a nuclear conflict between Islamabad and New Delhi.
Toner did not offer any specifics about a U.S. mediatory role but underscored concerns about any flare-up in the region.
South Asia has been rocked by unrest in Indian-controlled Kashmir, where security forces have killed civilian protesters in what South Asian experts say are spontaneous and indigenous demonstrations. New Delhi’s use of pellet guns, according to The New York Times, has caused dead eyes among the Kashmiri youth.
In the face of international concern and Islamabad’s condemnations of brutal repression in the disputed Kashmir territory, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi threatened Pakistan with destabilization in Balochistan. Islamabad says Modi’s admission on interfering in Balochistan clearly proves that New Delhi has been stoking insurgency and terror in the strategically located southwestern province. India has also turned down Pakistan’s proposal for talks on Kashmir, saying it only wants to talk about “cross-border” terrorism, allegedly perpetrated by Pakistan-based militant groups including LeT.
At the State Department Toner told reporters that the U.S. does not want to see tensions spin out of control.
“That’s something we constantly encourage for just that – or out of just that concern, which is that we don’t want to see tensions escalate, spiral out of control, and lead to some kind of incident,” he said.
“It is important for the two countries, the two governments to maintain strong, cordial, and productive relations,” the spokesman said.
The U.S. relationship with India and Pakistan, he said, is not a zero sum game.
“As we’ve said many times, there’s no zero-sum game here. We need to have a very strong and robust relationship with India and we do – the world’s largest democracy. And we also want to have a strong relationship with Pakistan. It’s in the interests of the region to do so,” he added.
Toner also brushed aside a suggestion that US-Pakistan relations were at “the lowest level”, saying their ties were “strong”.
“Our relationship is strong,” he said.
His comments came in response to a question in the backdrop of Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent visit to South Asia, during which he visited New Delhi but skipped Islamabad.
On countering terrorist threat, the spokesman said US wants Pakistan to take action against all terror networks.
“Our discussions continue to focus on the fact that we’re urging the Government of Pakistan to take concerted action against safe havens and terrorist groups that threaten other countries in the region and we’ve been very clear about that.
“And we have seen them attempt to address it. We want to see more action taken, but it continues to be a topic of conversation with them,” he added.
