NEW YORK: Pakistan hopes whoever is elected president of the United States in November’s election will focus on peace and stability in South Asia and help resolve the decades-long Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, Ambassador Masood Khan said.
“We have to work with whatever administration the people of the United States elect,” Masood Khan, who resigned as ambassador to the US on June 30, said in a Newsweek article on India-Pakistan expectations. from presidential rivals — presumptive Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican nominee former President Donald Trump — are now campaigning hard for America’s highest office.
Newsweek correspondent Tom O’Connor, writing under the headline “India, Pakistan prepare for battle between Harris and Trump”, pointed out that in 2020, as a US senator, Ms. Harris weighed the fate of Kashmir after India withdrew. her special status in 2019. That’s when she campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“We need to remind Kashmiris that they are not alone in the world,” Ms Harris said at the time. “We are monitoring the situation. If the situation requires it, it is necessary to intervene.”
“While Harris has largely refrained from speaking out on the Kashmir issue since becoming vice president, her past statements are widely remembered in Pakistan,” the article said. She stressed that Pakistan had campaigned extensively against New Delhi’s 2019 decision, seeing it as a unilateral violation of international law and a provocation in a dispute that has fueled past wars and still occasional border skirmishes between the two nations.
“We were reassured by some of the statements that were made about Kashmir in 2019, and I include Vice President Kamala Harris’s statements at that time,” Masood Khan said. “There has been a surge in support for Kashmiri rights.”
He added: “We hope that whatever administration is elected, whatever president and cabinet come in, they will pay attention to peace and stability in South Asia, because I think the future of the world depends on stability in South Asia. for many reasons,”
In this regard, Masood Khan called on the US to “demonstrate statesmanship, statesmanship to mediate for other countries to dialogue, resolve disputes,” including the Kashmir dispute.” This is the role of the United States as the leading nation in the world. of order,” Khan said.
On Afghanistan, Newsweek mentioned the ongoing unrest in neighboring Afghanistan and its impact on Pakistan. Today, the largely Afghanistan-based Islamic State in Khorasan (ISIS-K), the deadliest and largest of the many insurgencies active in the region, “was spawned by the war on terror,” Masood Khan said.
This is the case with other groups such as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which continue to wreak havoc in the region, he argued. As such, he said the threat “requires attention,” a level he believes has been lacking since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, a process that began under Trump and culminated under Biden in August 2021. “Attention here in Washington immediately after 2021 has dissolved due to many reasons,” said Masood Khan. “It was the Ukraine, it was the fixation on the Indo-Pacific strategy, then there was October 7 and its aftermath in the Middle East.”
Masood Khan stated that “we have very important relations” with both the US, “the most powerful nation in the world and the largest economy in the world”, and China, an “important nation” that has “caught up and is developing economically”. and economically it is developing at a tremendous speed and influence.
“So far, the outgoing ambassador said, ‘We haven’t been directly asked by the United States or China to choose either of those two countries, so I would say it’s a good model.’
On the other hand, a Newsweek article that devotes considerable space to developing US-India relations says, “The partnership has not been without problems under both administrations. But Indian officials today exude confidence that they will be able to work constructively with either Trump or Harris, who would would become the first-ever Indian-American presidential candidate if confirmed by her party next month after Biden’s late-stage exit.”
The article quoted a spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs as saying, “India and the US have a comprehensive global strategic partnership, the India-US relationship has bipartisan support in the US and has been strengthened under each administration.”
A spokesperson for the Indian Embassy in the US also noted that “India and the United States enjoy a comprehensive global strategic partnership based on shared democratic values” and that “the relationship enjoys broad support in both India and the US and we are confident of further strengthening it.” .”
