India’s IoK move threatens Afghan peace efforts: US paper

NEW YORK: India’s move to revoke special status of the occupied Kashmir threatens to complicate US efforts to forge a peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan, says The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

The newspaper also said Prime Minister Imran Khan’s “successful” visit to Washington, during which President Donald Trump offered to mediate the decades-old dispute, might have factored in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Kashmir move.

“The spike in tensions between Pakistan and India over the change of Kashmir’s status comes as Taliban peace talks appear to have reached a critical final stage,” WSJ, a major US financial newspaper said.

The New York Times, a leading American newspaper, on Wednesday, had also opposed the Indian government’s move to scrap occupied Kashmir of its special status guaranteed in its constitution.

In an editorial, The New York Times called New Delhi’s move as dangerous and wrong.

Read more: New York Times opposes Indian move of scraping occupied Kashmir’s special status

It may be noted that the government of India has urged Pakistan to ‘review’ its unilateral move to downgrade ties and suspend trade with New Dehli following its illegal annexation of occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

A press release issued by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday read that New Dehli “regrets the steps announced by Pakistan yesterday and would urge that country to review them so that normal channels for diplomatic communications are preserved.”