U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this month once again brought up the Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) issue, offering ‘help’ to India and Pakistan. “I get along with both countries very well. I am willing to help them if they want, they know that is out there,” he told reporters.
This marked a departure from Mr. Trump’s earlier offer to ‘mediate’ between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, made in July when he met Prime Minister Imran Khan at the White House. India had not taken kindly to the statement.
Moeed Yusuf, associate vice-president of the Asia centre at the U.S. Institute of Peace, and author of Brokering Peace in Nuclear Environments: U.S. Crisis Management in South Asia said he considered Mr. Trump’s statement “a mellowing down of that [earlier] position”, which he said was “not the U.S. policy position to begin with”. Mr. Yusuf also said that at the end of the day, Mr. Trump does genuinely want to be involved in these kind of very difficult high-profile international situations.
“That’s his style of diplomacy. But on this one, we have seen clearly that he has backtracked after meeting Indian Prime Minister at the G7 Summit so I don’t foresee any major changes here quite frankly, I don’t think he is going to be able to do much. He may say this every now and then but to pin hopes on a major change in U.S. policy at this point I think is unlikely,” Mr. Yusuf told The Hindu .
Mr. Yusuf added that where the U.S. and others will come into the picture is if there is a major India-Pakistan crisis and there are war clouds over South Asia “because then the nuclear element comes in but unfortunately when it comes to dispute resolution, there is going to be talk but no real action from the international community.”
Speaking on the issue, Maria Sultan, director-general of the Islamabad-based South Asian Strategic Stability Institute University, said that no crisis in Kashmir can remain limited in time or space and “it may become the Achilles heel for regional security”.
‘Highly exaggerated’
Analyst Zahid Hussain said that expectation that the U.S. could mediate between India and Pakistan “is highly exaggerated”. He pointed out that India has never accepted third-party involvement on the issue.
“However, the U.S. can play a role in bringing the two countries on negotiating table. Washington has played a significant role in easing tensions between them in the past. Mostly it is through backchannel diplomacy,” Mr. Hussain told The Hindu .
Foreign policy expert Fahd Humayun believes that since August 5, India has tried to allay international concerns on the possibility of a conflict, and underplay J&K’s geopolitical dimensions.
“But the creeping attentiveness of a string of U.S. lawmakers, including presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, suggests a growing cross-sectional interest in an inflammatory dispute that American diplomats had, at least in the past decade, increasingly tried to hedge.”
He added that since the early 2000s, America’s pivot to the region had largely been balanced on an evolving strategic camaraderie with India. But there are at least three indications this year that America’s and the international community’s approach to South Asia may be undergoing a shift, he said.
“The first is the clear lessons drawn from [the events of] this February, when America’s hesitation to put itself in the middle of growing hostilities after the Pulwama attack in Kashmir led to the first aerial combat between Indian and Pakistani air forces since 1971.
“The second reason is that while the breadth of Indo-U.S. ties may still prevent the U.S. may from publicly acknowledging Pakistani outrage, for many in Washington, the bloom is off the global rose as far as Prime Minister Modi’s approach to democracy and human rights are concerned. This is manifesting itself in multiple ways: concern expressed by the State Department vis-à-vis human rights in Kashmir, the refutation by a senior American diplomat of a suggestion that U.S. officials had been informed of the decision on Article 370 in advance, and the first-ever UN Human Rights report [earlier in the year] documenting human rights abuses by Indian security personnel.
“Third is the slow but vital recalibration of Pakistan’s image in Washington as a regional stabiliser whose support has helped the United States achieve significant progress in talking to the Taliban in Afghanistan. A successful visit by Prime Minister Imran Khan to Washington in July and a budding rapport with the White House has boosted the currency of Islamabad’s views, and its concerns, within strategic corridors,” Mr. Humayun told The Hindu .
Mehmal Sarfraz is a journalist based in Lahore
