<div align="justify">The US is in the "best position" to defuse tensions between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir issue and it can play a "leadership" role before crises between the two neighbours explode, Pakistan's top diplomat to the UN has said.<br /><br />"Somebody needs to play this role and the United States is in the best position to do that," Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told the Washington-based think-tank World Affairs Council, in a television programme broadcast yesterday.<br /><br />She said the US was in a unique position to defuse the rising tensions between India and Pakistan over the decades- old Kashmir issue as it has good relations with both India and Pakistan, according to a press release of her remarks issued by Pakistan's Permanent Mission to the UN.<br /><br />She added that such a role required a more balanced policy on part of US, several Pakistani media quoted her as saying in the programme.<br /><br />At this point of time the situation in Kashmir is once again inflamed; the situation is grave, it poses a critical threat to regional peace and security and again, she said.<br /><br />"What we would like to see is the US not coming in as a fire brigade to put out a fire but to play a role to avert any kind of crisis from brewing and flaring up," she said.<br /><br />"I am not suggesting that's about to happen but I am saying that before the next crisis happens this is a role of leadership that the US can play," she said.<br /><br />Lodhi pointed out that in recent years, people in Pakistan have felt that the US lacked balance in its approach to South Asia, and "as a result we lost something in the relationship."<br /><br />She said the lack of balance was best represented by the nuclear deal - the civilian nuclear deal that the Bush administration concluded with India - which was a discriminatory nuclear policy towards the region and had consequences for it.<br /><br />On the Kashmir issue, she said, "This is no piece of real estate that Pakistan and India are fighting over, this is about people, it is about the self-determination of the people, and their right to their self-determination is enshrined in the UN charter, in UN declarations and in UN Security Council resolutions, so all we say is allow the people of Kashmir to decide their future."<br /><br />Lodhi stressed the need for a dialogue to resolve the Kashmir and other issues between the two countries.</div>
<div align="justify">The US is in the "best position" to defuse tensions between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir issue and it can play a "leadership" role before crises between the two neighbours explode, Pakistan's top diplomat to the UN has said.<br /><br />"Somebody needs to play this role and the United States is in the best position to do that," Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi told the Washington-based think-tank World Affairs Council, in a television programme broadcast yesterday.<br /><br />She said the US was in a unique position to defuse the rising tensions between India and Pakistan over the decades- old Kashmir issue as it has good relations with both India and Pakistan, according to a press release of her remarks issued by Pakistan's Permanent Mission to the UN.<br /><br />She added that such a role required a more balanced policy on part of US, several Pakistani media quoted her as saying in the programme.<br /><br />At this point of time the situation in Kashmir is once again inflamed; the situation is grave, it poses a critical threat to regional peace and security and again, she said.<br /><br />"What we would like to see is the US not coming in as a fire brigade to put out a fire but to play a role to avert any kind of crisis from brewing and flaring up," she said.<br /><br />"I am not suggesting that's about to happen but I am saying that before the next crisis happens this is a role of leadership that the US can play," she said.<br /><br />Lodhi pointed out that in recent years, people in Pakistan have felt that the US lacked balance in its approach to South Asia, and "as a result we lost something in the relationship."<br /><br />She said the lack of balance was best represented by the nuclear deal - the civilian nuclear deal that the Bush administration concluded with India - which was a discriminatory nuclear policy towards the region and had consequences for it.<br /><br />On the Kashmir issue, she said, "This is no piece of real estate that Pakistan and India are fighting over, this is about people, it is about the self-determination of the people, and their right to their self-determination is enshrined in the UN charter, in UN declarations and in UN Security Council resolutions, so all we say is allow the people of Kashmir to decide their future."<br /><br />Lodhi stressed the need for a dialogue to resolve the Kashmir and other issues between the two countries.</div>