Donald Trump Repeats Offer To “Help” On Kashmir Ahead Of Talks With Pakistan PM Imran Khan

Davos:

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan at his side, US President Donald Trump again repeated his offer to “help” on Kashmir on Tuesday. Despite a series of refusals from New Delhi, this was President Trump’s fourth such offer since August, when the government scrapped the special status to Jammu and Kashmir. The US President is expected to visit India within a few weeks – which would be his first visit to the country.

Addressing the media with Imran Khan ahead of their talks on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, President Trump said: “We are talking about Kashmir and with relation to what’s going on with Pakistan and India. If we can help, we certainly will be helping. We have been watching it and following it very, very closely”.

“There are issues that we want to talk about, like Afghanistan. Fortunately, we are on the same page… India, of course, it is a big issue. We always hope that the US will play its part in resolving that because no other country can,” Imran Khan said.

Asked if he would visit Pakistan while heading out to India, President Trump said, “We are visiting right now, so we won’t really have to. But I wanted to say hello for both a relationship standpoint… we have had a great relationship”. 

President Trump had made his last offer of mediation in September, when top leaders of most nations had gathered in the US for the United Nations General Assembly. At the time, ahead of the meeting with the Pakistan Prime Minister, President Trump said he was “ready, willing and able” to mediate if both Mr Khan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted him to.

India has repeatedly underscored that Kashmir remains a bilateral issue – a position that the US agreed to last Wednesday, when China made a third attempt to discuss Jammu and Kashmir at a meeting of the UN Security Council.

“Most of the members were of the view that it is a bilateral issue. Hence the closed door session didn’t come to any conclusion,” the foreign ministry had said a day after the meeting.

But while backing India’s position that Kashmir is a bilateral issue, US expressed concerns earlier this month about the detentions of political leaders and the internet restrictions.