US calls for direct dialogue between India and Pakistan

WASHINGTON: The United States (US) Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller on Thursday said that there was a need for direct dialogue between India and Pakistan to address regional security threats.

In a press briefing on Thursday in Washington, the spokesperson stated that his country valued relations with both, Pakistan and India. However, the pace, extent, and nature of dialogue should be determined by both nations.

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“As we have said, we support direct discussions between India and Pakistan, but the pace, scope and character should be determined by those two countries, not by us,” he said.

Miller said there a mutual interest between the US and Pakistan in addressing security challenges affecting the region.

“We partner with Pakistan on security through our high-level counter-terrorism dialogue, including several counter-terrorism capacity building programmes, and we support a series of US-Pakistan military-to-military engagements,” he added.

The statement comes amid ongoing tensions and periodic skirmishes along the 3,323-kilometer-long border between India and Pakistan.

The two nations have a longstanding history of territorial disputes, primarily centered on the Kashmir region. These nuclear-armed countries have been involved in three full-scale wars and one limited war over this contested area.

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Relations between the two nuclear-armed nations reached a new low when the right-wing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked article 370, which granted Kashmir some level of autonomy, in August 2019.