New York: The State Department now appears to stand behind US President Donald Trump's claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked him to mediate or arbitrate the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, moving away from a Department official's clarification that it considered it a bilateral issue. Asked by a reporter if there has been any change in US policy on Kashmir, Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in Washington on Thursday, "I don't have anything to say beyond the President's statement."
This would be a step back from an attempt by Alice G Wells, the Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, to ease tensions with India over Trump's claim, which India has denied. Soon after Trump's made the claim before reporters as he and visiting Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan were preparing to meet at the White House on Monday, Wells tried to clarify Washington's position affirming that Kashmir was a bilateral matter, conforming to India's stand.
She tweeted under her initials, AGW, on her bureau's twitter account, "While Kashmir is a bilateral issue for both parties to discuss, the Trump administration welcomes #Pakistan and #India sitting down and the United States stands ready to assist." Ortagus moves the Department position back to Trump's although she does not explicitly call it a change in the policy. Trump had said, "I was with Prime Minister Modi two weeks ago, and we talked about this subject. And he actually said, 'Would you like to be a mediator or arbitrator?' I said, 'Where?' He said, 'Kashmir.'" Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has denied in Parliament that Modi had made any such request when he met Trump in Osaka on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Japan.
- Arul Louis
