ISLAMABAD: Pakistan welcomed an offer from Donald Trump on Thursday to iron out the tensions with India over the on-going unrest in Kashmir.
United States Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump offered to be a mediator to ease out the tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals.
In an interview with Indian newspaper Hindustan Times last week, Trump said he would be pleased to be a mediator between Pakistan and India. “Well, I would love to see Pakistan and India get along, because that’s a very, very hot tinderbox…. That would be a very great thing. I hope they can do it,” Trump said.
The Foreign Office said it did not comment on media reports usually but in this case it welcomed the mediation offer. “We continue to urge our American friends including those in the administration to play their due role in resolving bilateral issues between Pakistan and India – particularly the Kashmir dispute,” Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said.
“And definitely Pakistan has welcomed in the past also any role of mediation, we welcome such offers,” Zakaria added.
The comment was a change of tack after the Interior minister launched a blistering attack on Trump’s ‘ignorance’ in May after the billionaire vowed that if he won office he would free a doctor jailed in 2011 after helping track down Osama bin Laden.
Tensions have soared in recent weeks as India blames Pakistan for a raid on an army base in Indian-occupied Kashmir on September 18, which saw New Delhi respond with – what it called – ‘surgical strikes’ across the border, infuriating Islamabad.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the BRICS leaders on Sunday to take a strong united stand against the ‘mother-ship of terrorism’ in the South Asian region – in a thinly veiled reference to Pakistan – to which China responded by saying that labelling any country as a ‘terrorist state’ is not a globally accepted practice.
