US State Department spokesperson Ned Price, during a press briefing, said that Washington’s partnerships with Pakistan and India were “relationships that stand on their own”.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had\u00a0asked<\/a>\u00a0Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to hold serious and sincere talks to resolve “burning issues”, including Kashmir.<\/p>\n \u201cMy message to the Indian leadership and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is that let us sit down on the table and have serious and sincere talks to resolve our burning issues like Kashmir,\u201d the prime minister had said in an interview with Al Arabiya.<\/p>\n The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) later\u00a0clarified<\/a>\u00a0that negotiations with India were only possible if the “illegal action of August 5, 2019” is reversed and “without India’s revocation of this step, negotiations are not possible”.<\/p>\n Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch had also\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0that Pakistan would welcome facilitation by the United States to break the stalemate with India on the longstanding\u00a0Kashmir dispute.<\/a><\/p>\n At the time, she had been responding to a question by journalists about the recent statement made by Pakistan\u2019s Ambassador to the US Masood Khan, who spoke about the possible role of the US in the resolution of the Kashmir dispute.<\/p>\n While Washington in the past did play a role to ease tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. The 2003 ceasefire understanding was brokered by the then Bush administration in order to allow Musharraf regime to focus on the war on terror.<\/p>\n Of late, however, the US has followed a more cautious approach and avoids getting involved directly in the Pakistan-India tensions.<\/p>\n In line with this policy, Price told reporters during the briefing that “we have long called for regional stability in South Asia. That is certainly what we want to see.”<\/p>\n But added that “when it comes to our partnership \u2013 our partnerships with India and Pakistan, these are relationships that stand on their own. We do not see these relationships as zero-sum.”<\/p>\n “We have long called for regional stability in South Asia, but the pace, the scope, the character of any dialogue between India and Pakistan is a matter for those two countries, India and Pakistan,” he stressed.<\/p>\n