State Department says both countries need
to discuss and resolve the issues
WASHINGTON: The US on Thursday said it did not want to see an escalation of tension between Pakistan and India after both countries decided to expel each other’s diplomats on charges of espionage.
In a briefing here, State Department Spokesman John Kirby refused to comment on the two countries’ decisions to expel diplomats, saying these were sovereign decisions that states made and that the US was going to leave these issues to India and Pakistan to work out.
“Well obviously we don’t want to see that happen,” he said when a questioner said such actions in the past were followed by firing across the LoC and international border. Kirby said the United States believed that these were the issues that India and Pakistan need to discuss and work out between themselves.
The US has shownconcern over the strained relations between India and Pakistan before, and askedthe two countries to resolve issues through dialogue. In the last few weeks, the State Department repeatedly declared that it had been closely monitoring thesituation. It has alsowarnedthe two countries not to takesteps that escalate thesituation, and asked Indian and Pakistanimilitaries to continue communication toreducethe tensions.
In early October,believing that terrorism in the region could be rooted out through mutual cooperation, John Kirby toldreporters: "We haverepeatedlyexpressed our concerns regarding the danger thatterrorism poses to theregion. And we all know that terrorism, in many ways, knows no border."
Giving out the US position on the Pakistan-India border tensions, he had said: "Ourmessage to both sides has been the same, in terms ofencouraging them toincrease communication todeal with this threat and to avoid steps thatescalate the tension."
"What we want to see isincreased cooperation against what is a very shared common threat for both countries, and to see steps being taken to deal with it by all sides."