Pakistani envoy urges Trump to help prevent war with India

NEW YORK: Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Rizwan Saeed Sheikh, has urged President Donald Trump to step in and help ease soaring tensions between India and Pakistan as the US leader simultaneously strives to solve conflicts in Europe and Middle East.

“If we have a president who is standing for peace in the world as a pronounced objective during this administration, to establish a legacy as a peacemaker, or as someone who finished wars, defied wars and played a role in de-confliction, resolving the disputes, I don’t think there is any higher or flashier flash point, particularly in nuclear terms, as Kashmir,” Ambassador Sheikh said in an exclusive interview with Newsweek, a mass circulation American weekly magazine.

“We are not talking about one or two countries in that neighbourhood who are nuclear capable. So, that is how grave it is.”

The tensions between two the South Asian neighbours followed an armed attack on April 22 in Pahalgam, a town in the Indian-occupied Kashmir, in which 26 people were reportedly killed.

Indian officials have responded by downgrading diplomatic and military ties with Pakistan, measures met in kind by Islamabad. Clashes have since erupted along the Line of Control in Kashmir. Pakistani defence minister and information minister have warned of an imminent strike being planned by India.

With the stakes appearing to grow higher by the hour, Ambassador Sheikh argued that the Trump administration would need to pursue a more comprehensive and sustained initiative than witnessed in past U.S. attempts to defuse crises that have erupted between the two countries.

“So, I think with this threat that we are facing, there is a latent opportunity to address the situation by not just to focus on an immediate de-escalatory measure, or a de-escalatory approach,” Sheikh said, “but to try and get this out of the way in a fashion that there is something more durable and lasting in terms of a durable solution of the Kashmir dispute rather than allowing the situation to stay precarious and pop up again and again at the next drop of a hat on this side or that side.”

Speaking to reporters the following day, U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said that Trump administration officials are “monitoring the developments across the board in that region” and also “at multiple levels…are in touch with the governments of India and Pakistan.” Rubio is expected to speak with both sides this week.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke by telephone to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who briefed him on Pakistan’s perspective regarding recent developments in South Asia, following the Pahalgam incident.

Newsweek said it has also reached out to the Indian Embassy to the U.S. and the Indian External Affairs Ministry for comment, as well as to the U.S. State Department for additional comment.