US President Donald Trump has again offered to mediate the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India.
When questioned by a reporter regarding India’s rejection of third-party mediation, Trump asked, “Have they accepted the offer or not?” When told no, he said, “It is really up to Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi.” “I met Prime Minister [Imran] Khan, I got along great with [the premier]. I think they are fantastic people – Khan and Modi – I mean, I would imagine they could get along very well,” he said. “But if they wanted somebody to intervene, to help them […] and I spoke with Pakistan about that and I spoke frankly in India about it […] that battle has been going on for a long time,” he continued. “If I can, if they wanted me to, I would certainly intervene,” he added.
The US president had for the first time offered to mediate between the two nuclear-armed neighbours when Prime Minister Imran Khan visited the US last month. At a joint news conference with Prime Minister Imran at the White House on July 22, President Trump had said he was willing to mediate between India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir issue if the two neighbours asked him to do so. “If I can help, I would love to be a mediator. If I can do anything to help, let me know,” Trump had said while responding to a question from a Pakistani journalist. “I was with Prime Minister Modi two weeks ago and we talked about this subject [Kashmir]. And he, actually, said, would you like to be a mediator or arbitrator? I said, where? [Modi said] Kashmir,” Trump had explained.
The statement had caused a political storm in India where opposition parties called Modi’s reported request to the US president an act of treason and asked him to explain why he made such a move. The Indian government denied ever asking Trump to mediate on Kashmir, adding that India retained its traditional position that it would not accept any third-party mediation on its disputes with Pakistan.
On July 24, President Trump’s Chief Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow had, however, rejected the suggestion that his boss had ‘made up’ the claim that the Indian PM had asked him to mediate on Kashmir. “The president does not make anything up. That’s a very rude question in my opinion,” he had told a reporter at a White House briefing.
Once again on Friday, Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar rejected US President Donald Trump’s offer to mediate between Pakistan and India on Kashmir and said any discussion on the disputed region will take place bilaterally and only with Pakistan. In a post on Twitter, Jaishankar said, “Have conveyed to American counterpart Mike Pompeo this morning in clear terms that any discussion on Kashmir, if at all warranted, will only be with Pakistan and only bilaterally.” He said he and Pompeo had wide-ranging discussions on regional issues.
In a brief statement about the meeting, the State Department, however, did not mention Kashmir or the mediation offer. It said Pompeo and Jaishankar ‘discussed our shared commitment to upholding the rule of law, freedom of navigation, and democratic values in the Indo-Pacific region’.
