US urges India and Pakistan to reduce tensions, resume talks

washington — While declining comment on India’s surgical strike on militants in Myanmar, the US has asked India and Pakistan to take steps to reduce tensions and move towards resuming dialogue.

“I don’t have a comment on that specific operation,” US State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke told reporters when asked if the US supported or was concerned over India’s cross border strike in Myanmar, a move that has raised hackles in Pakistan.

But “we encourage India and Pakistan to take steps to reduce tensions and to move towards resuming talks,” he said.

“The relationship between India and Pakistan is critical to advancing peace and stability in South Asia, so we welcome any steps India and Pakistan can take to reduce tensions and move towards resuming dialogue,” Rathke said.

“We encourage India and Pakistan to take those kinds of steps, and we believe that India and Pakistan

The relationship between India and Pakistan is critical to advancing peace and stability in South Asia

US State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke

each have a mutual interest in addressing the threat posed by violent extremism and terrorism,” he said.

Asked if the US had reached out officially to India or Pakistan to defuse tensions over the Myanmar strike, Rathke said: “Well, we’ve encouraged a reduction of tensions on both sides at high levels, so that’s something we’ve mentioned.” Protests were held across Pakistan’s Sindh province to voice anger over what people described as “Indian war hysteria and inhuman brutalities being meted out to the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar”. Activists of almost all religious parties and a number of political parties took out rallies and staged demonstrations across Sindh on Friday, Dawn online reported.

Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) and Pakistan Sunni Tehreek (PST) protesters burnt Indian flags and effigies of the Indian prime minister at the end of their rallies. Sindh PML-Q president Haleem Adil Shaikh, while addressing workers outside the Press Club in Hyderabad city, said that all Pakistanis were united for the security and integrity of their homeland.

If India committed the mistake of resorting to aggression, the entire nation would back its army, he said. —