The United States won’t wait till “something happens” between Pakistan and India and will try to de-escalate decades-old tensions between the nuclear armed neighbours.
“It’s absolutely right that this administration is concerned about the relationship between India and Pakistan and very much wants to see how we de-escalate any sort of conflict going forward,” said US envoy to the United Nations Nikki Haley.
“We don’t think, we should wait till something happens,” she said while addressing a press conference after assuming the role of President of the Security Council for the month of April.
Haley said she expects that the Trump administration is going to be in talks and try and “find its place to be a part of that (de-escalating tensions)”.
“We very much think that we should be proactive in the way that we are seeing tensions rise and conflicts start to bubble up and so we want to see if we can be a part of that.
The remarks are the first time that Haley, as a member of the Trump cabinet, has addressed tensions between Pakistan and India signaling an apparent change in the US stance of not engaging in Indo-Pak disputes.
On talks with Pakistan, India has ruled out any third party mediation, including by the UN or the US.
Pakistan on the other hand intends to have interlocutors from both the world body as well as from Washington to resolve the longstanding Kashmir dispute.
