US does not want war of words between India, Pakistan

The United States wants a constructive dialogue, not a war of words, between India and Pakistan, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Monday.

The reaction from the United States comes after a verbal duel between the foreign ministers of the two South Asian neighbours last week escalated tension.

"The fact that we have partnerships with both countries makes us – of course, leaves us not wanting to see a war of words between India and Pakistan,” Price told journalists in Washington DC.

Also Read | Trump referral: What laws the January 6 panel says were broken

He was replying to a question from a journalist on Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s recent diatribe against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“We would like to see constructive dialogue between India and Pakistan. We think that is for the betterment of the Pakistani people, for the Indian people,” said Price.

Zardari had last week called Modi “the butcher of Gujarat”. He made the comment after India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had called Pakistan an epicentre of terrorism. Both had made the comments separately while interacting with journalists at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Also Read | US poised to become net exporter of crude oil in 2023

Jaishankar had dismissed Islamabad’s latest allegation about New Delhi’s role in orchestrating terrorist attacks in Pakistan. He called Pakistan an epicentre of terrorism targeting India as well as other countries in the region and beyond. He had also tacitly reminded that it was at Abbottabad in Pakistan that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden took refuge for years till the US forces killed him in May 2011.

“Osama bin Laden is dead, [but] the Butcher of Gujarat lives and he is the prime minister of India,” Zardari had said, responding to Jaishankar. India strongly condemned his statement, calling it “uncivilised” and “a new low even for Pakistan”.

“There is much work that we can do together bilaterally. There are differences that, of course, need to be addressed between India and Pakistan. The US stands ready to assist as a partner to both,” Price said.

He also said that the US had a “global strategic partnership” with India and a “deep partnership” with Pakistan. “These relationships in our mind are not zero-sum. We don’t view them in relation to one another,” he said, adding: “Each of them (India and Pakistan) is indispensable to us and to the promotion and the pursuit of the shared goals that we have with India, the shared goals that we have with Pakistan, the shared goals that all three of us share.”