Trump to work with India, Pakistan on Kashmir ‘issue’
Al Jazeera :
United States President Donald Trump has offered to work with India and Pakistan to achieve a “solution” for the long-disputed Kashmir region, days after his administration brokered a ceasefire between the two nuclear-armed rivals.
“I will work with you, both to see if, after a ‘thousand years,’ a solution can be arrived at concerning Kashmir,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Sunday.
The US president doubled down on a historically inaccurate assertion that India and Pakistan have been fighting for “a thousand years” or more.
The Muslim-majority territory has been contested since the partition of British India in 1947 into India and Pakistan.
The two countries have fought three wars over the region. They both stake a claim over Kashmir as a whole but control parts of it.
India-administered Kashmir has seen decades of armed rebellion either for independence or a merger with Pakistan. New Delhi has deployed more than 700,000 soldiers to quash the rebellion.
The government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has so far remained committed to a decades-old policy of refusing international mediation to find a solution to the Kashmir issue. In 2019, Modi’s government stripped India-administered Kashmir’s semiautonomy, further alienating the Kashmiris.
In its response, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Sunday that it appreciates Trump’s willingness to resolve the Kashmir issue, which has implications for peace and security in South Asia and beyond.
“Pakistan reaffirms that any just and lasting settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute must be in accordance with the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions and must ensure the realization of the fundamental rights of the Kashmiri people, including their inalienable right to self-determination,” it said.
India’s leaders have not directly commented, but Indian media quoted unnamed government sources as saying no decision has yet been made to engage in talks on anything beyond the ceasefire.
India and Pakistan agreed to halt all fighting on Saturday, but Trump was the first person to announce the deal on his online platform.