By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: US President Donald Trump offered on Sunday to mediate the decades-old Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, coupling his proposal with a promise to “substantially” increase trade with both nuclear-armed nations as a tenuous ceasefire took hold after a week of missiles, drones and air strikes that killed at least 66 people.
Trump’s message on his social media platform, Truth Social, came a day after India and Pakistan targeted civilian and military structures, raised widespread fears of a nuclear confrontation between the neighbors. Relations between India and Pakistan deteriorated after Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing an attack on tourists in occupied Kashmir last month that killed 26.
Islamabad denied involvement and offered an independent probe, with tensions reaching a boiling point after India fired missiles at what it said were “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan last Wednesday, killing several in Operation Sindoor. Pakistan said India had killed only civilians including children, vowing retribution.
The conflict had rapidly intensified and on the same day, Pakistan said it had shot down five Indian aircraft. Tensions spiked further on Friday when Pakistan’s military had reported shooting down 77 Indian drones over multiple locations, including Karachi, Lahore, and Rawalpindi. Early Saturday, reports emerged of Indian missile strikes on several airbases in Pakistan
Pakistan launched a major counter-attack against India early Saturday, targeting the rival’s key military installations in operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos. By Saturday afternoon, back-channel talks led by the Trump administration secured a ceasefire.
“While not even discussed, I am going to increase trade, substantially, with both of these great Nations,” Trump wrote. “Additionally, I will work with you both to see if, after a ‘thousand years,’ a solution can be arrived at concerning Kashmir.”
India and Pakistan both claim the Himalayan region of Kashmir in full but govern only parts of it. They have fought two out of three wars since 1947 over Kashmir. India accuses Pakistan of arming separatist militants in the part of Kashmir it administers. Pakistan rejects the allegations and says it extends only moral and diplomatic support to the people of Kashmir.
Occupied Kashmir has seen decades of armed rebellion either for independence or a merger with Pakistan. New Delhi has deployed more than 700,000 soldiers to quash the rebellion. In 2019, Prime Minister Modi’s government stripped India-administered Kashmir’s semiautonomy, further alienating the Kashmiris.
The US president said he was “proud of the strong and unwaveringly powerful leadership of India and Pakistan for having the strength, wisdom, and fortitude to understand that it was time to stop the military aggression that could have led to the death and destruction of so many, and so much”. “Millions of good and innocent people could have died! Your legacy is greatly enhanced by your brave actions.”
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif welcomed the offer. “I am extremely grateful to President Trump for his pathbreaking leadership and commitment to global peace and for his most valuable offer to play a greater role in bringing lasting peace to South Asia,” Sharif posted on X, suggesting it could bolster Pakistan-US ties across trade and beyond.
“I am confident that in President Donald Trump, Pakistan has found a great partner who can reinvigorate our strategic partnership and strengthen Pakistan-U.S. ties, not only in trade and investment but in all other areas of cooperation”
The Foreign Office echoed this, welcoming Trump’s “constructive role” and stressing that any Kashmir resolution must honor U.N. Security Council resolutions and the Kashmiri people’s “inalienable right to self-determination.”
“We also appreciate President Trump’s expressed willingness to support efforts aimed at the resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute — a longstanding issue that has serious implications for peace and security in South Asia and beyond,” the foreign office said. “Pakistan remains committed to engaging with the United States and the international community in efforts to promote peace, security, and prosperity in the region.”
However, almost all successive Indian governments refuse any international mediation to find a solution to the Kashmir issue.
India’s leaders have not directly commented, but Indian media quoted unnamed government sources as saying no decision has yet been made to engage in talks on anything beyond the ceasefire.
Reuters reported that Trump’s proposal to work towards a solution to the Kashmir problem, along with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s declaration that India and Pakistan would start talks on their broader issues at a neutral site, has irked many Indians.
“By agreeing to abort under U.S. persuasion … just three days of military operations, India is drawing international attention to the Kashmir dispute, not to Pakistan’s cross-border terrorism that triggered the crisis,” said Brahma Chellaney, an Indian defence analyst told Reuters.
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