Jaishankar, Pompeo discuss J&K issue

WASHINGTON: External affairs minister SJ a is hank ar and his American counterpart Mike Pompeo discussed the situation in Kashmir before the 2+2 ministerial dialogue, but the discussion was brief and did not cast a shadow on the broader talks that followed.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the other issue that has received a lot of attention in the US, came up at the external affairs minister’s meeting with the leadership of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Chairman Jim Risch (Republican) and Ranking Member Robert Menendez (Democrat). US officials had said in the run-up to the second 2+2 ministerial that they expected their side to raise Kashmir and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act as part of an ongoing dialogue between the two countries on human rights issues even though it was not on the agenda. “Secretary Pompeo and I had a brief discussion on that (Kashmir),” Jaishankar told reporters Thursday in response to a question if Kashmir was discussed. “I shared with him that direction of the events was positive.” “Obviously, things will happen at their time,” he added in a reference to the normalization of the situation.

“It’s natural that when a foreign minister of a country comes and people have an interest in that country and the relationship they raise issues which are of interest and, I think any conscientious foreign minister will present what is their country’s view point and that was essentially what happened,” he said.