Pakistan's envoy to the US has urged President Donald Trump to help ease tensions with India as he simultaneously strives to solve conflicts in Europe and West Asia, Newsweek reported.
Pakistan's Ambassador Rizwan Saeed Sheikh said that for a president "who is standing for peace in the world as a pronounced objective during this administration”, there was no “higher or flashier flash point” than Kashmir.
His remark comes amid heightened tension between India and Pakistan after terrorists killed 26 people, mostly tourists, in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam on April 22.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's former foreign minister and Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Thursday urged the international community to intervene to prevent a potential conflict between Pakistan and India, Geo News reported.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday told the top defence brass that the armed forces have "complete operational freedom" to decide on the mode, targets and timing of India's response to the Pahalgam attack.
"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,” Sheikh told Newsweek on Wednesday.
"We are not talking about one or two countries in that neighbourhood who are nuclear capable. So, that is how grave it is," he said, referring to China, India and Pakistan.
Amid Pakistan's increasing apprehension of retaliatory action by India to the Pahalgam attack in view of its cross-border linkages, Sheikh said that the Trump administration would need to pursue a more comprehensive and sustained initiative than witnessed in past US attempts to defuse crises that have erupted between the two South Asian countries.
"So, I think with this threat that we are facing, there is a latent opportunity to address the situation by not just (focusing) on an immediate de-escalatory measure, or a de-escalatory approach," the envoy said as he called for a more durable and lasting solution to the Kashmir issue, "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".
On Thursday, US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth expressed his deepest sympathies for the tragic loss of innocent civilians in the dastardly terror attack in Pahalgam and said that the US supports India's right to defend itself.
He reiterated the strong support of the US government in India's fight against terrorism.
Earlier, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged India and Pakistan to de-escalate their tensions as he held separate phone conversations with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
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