If I can do anything to help, I will be there: Trump offers to help diffuse India-Pakistan tension

New Delhi: United States President Donald Trump offered to help de-escalate the heightened tension between India and Pakistan.

“If I can do anything to help, I will be there,” Trump said, commenting on escalating tension between the two South Asian neighbours, in the wake of India’s military operations targeting terrorist camps in Pakistan, as well as in areas under illegal occupation of Pakistan.

India launched Operation Sindoor early on Wednesday after waiting for a fortnight following the April 22 killing of 26 people by Pakistan-trained terrorists at Baisaran near Pahalgam in J&K.

“It is so terrible. I get along with both. I know both very well. I want to see them work it out, I want to see them stop. Hopefully, they can stop now. They have done tit for tat,” Trump said, adding that the US had good relationships with both India and Pakistan.

New Delhi in the past rejected any attempt by any foreign leader to mediate between India and Pakistan.

The 1972 Simla Agreement between India and Pakistan and the 1999 Lahore Declaration had left no scope for the UN or any other third party to play any role in resolving the “outstanding issues” between the two South Asian neighbours

Islamabad, however, recently put in abeyance the Simla Agreement and all other bilateral pacts between India and Pakistan as a retaliatory measure after New Delhi suspended the Indus Water Treaty, 1960, in response to the terrorist attack.