Pakistan seeks US intervention in Kashmir

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Sunday called for the intervention of the United States in resolving the Kashmir issue, provoking strong reactions from India, which ruled out any such possibility by stressing that the matter was bilateral.

Sharif, who is on his way to the US to meet President Barack Obama, spoke to reporters during a stopover in London. “Though India did not want such (third party) intervention, the world powers should get involved to resolve the (Kashmir) issue,” he said.
“India and Pakistan are nuclear powers and the region is a nuclear flash point,” the Associated Press of Pakistan quoted him as saying.

Rejecting Sharif’s demand, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid told a news channel, “There is no way in which India will accept any intervention on an issue that is entirely accepted in the Simla Agreement as a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan.”

He said Kashmir is an integral part of India and no one should raise a question on it. “It is a waste of time for anybody, no matter how eminent, to even trying to question it,” he said.

On whether the ceasefire has collapsed, he said: “I don't think that is true. There are many violations. It is a large number of small armed fires. It is unacceptable and certainly counter-productive. But I don't think we can at this point say that ceasefire has collapsed. That would not be a correct assessment of the situation.”

Khurshid also said any US economic aid to Pakistan must not be used in a manner that is detrimental to India’s security and strategic interests and hoped that Washington will keep that in mind as a “good strategic partner”.

Sharif had further told reporters that during his US visit amid Kargil conflict in 1999, then president of the country Bill Clinton had assured Pakistan of an intervention to resolve the issue.

“I told him that if he spends 10 per cent of the time he was spending on the Middle East, the Kashmir issue could be resolved,” he said. “President Clinton promised, but then things changed.”

No change in Kashmir policy: US

The Obama administration on Monday said there has not been an “iota of change” on its policy on Kashmir which considers it a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan, dismissing the latest efforts to seek US intervention in Kashmir, PTI reports from Washington.