Calling Pakistan the “biggest threat to peace in the region”, the Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday asked the international community to enforce mandates concerning terrorism that originates from the neighbouring country. The comments from New Delhi came hours after United States’ Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley indicated that the Donald Trump administration may try to diffuse the conflict between the countries.
“The government’s position for bilateral redressal of all India-Pakistan issues in an environment free of terror and violence has not changed,” the MEA said. It added that the international community should enforce global mechanisms and mandates concerning “terrorism emanating from Pakistan, which continues to be the single biggest threat to peace in our region and beyond”.
Earlier on Tuesday, Haley had said that the US Cabinet will be in talks to “find its place to be a part of that [peace talks]”, PTI reported. “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,” Haley said, adding that the US president himself may participate in the peace talks.
This is the first time a senior official from the new US administration has addressed the tensions between India and Pakistan. The Barack Obama government had maintained that the Jammu and Kashmir dispute between the neighbouring countries was a bilateral subject.
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