WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States has asked President Donald Trump to play his role in easing heightened tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi in the wake of the Pahalgam attack in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
In an interview with Newsweek, Rizwan Saeed Sheikh has called for a durable resolution of the Kashmir dispute for peace in the region. He strongly rejected any involvement of Pakistan in the Pahalgam attack.
The tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours increased after gunmen attacked tourists in the Pahalgam area of occupied Kashmir on 22 April, killing 26 people and injuring 17.
India swiftly blamed Pakistan for the attack without presenting any credible evidence. Pakistan condemned the attack and strongly rejected the Indian government’s baseless accusations.
Tensions have escalated sharply, with Pakistan reinforcing its military presence and India’s prime minister granting operational freedom to the armed forces.
Early Wednesday, Pakistan stated it anticipated a potential Indian incursion within the next 24 to 36 hours. In response, diplomatic efforts by other nations have intensified in a bid to avert a possible military confrontation.
Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Rizwan Saeed Sheikh told Newsweek that for a president “standing for peace in the world as a pronounced objective during this administration” — referring to Trump — there was no “higher or flashier flashpoint” than the Kashmir issue.
“If we have a president who is standing for peace in the world as a pronounced objective during this administration, to establish a legacy as a peacemaker — or as someone who finished wars, defied wars and played a role in de-confliction, resolving the disputes — I don’t think there is any higher or flashier flash point, particularly in nuclear terms, as Kashmir,” Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Rizwan Saeed Sheikh told Newsweek.
“We are not talking about one or two countries in that neighbourhood who [sic] are nuclear-capable. So, that is how grave it is,” he told the US magazine.
“I think with this threat that we are facing, there is a latent opportunity to address the situation by not just [focusing] on an immediate de-escalatory measure or a de-escalatory approach,” the envoy said.
During his interview, Sheikh stressed that the Kashmir issue was the root cause of all problems between India and Pakistan.
“Until and unless that final settlement is made and the resolutions dictate the prescribed solution is allowed to play out, we will all keep having these problems,” Sheikh said.
“That’s why we insist on the United States and others playing a role in this situation and getting the de-confliction part activated,” he added.
“We do not want to fight, particularly with a bigger country,” Sheikh said. “We want peace. It suits our economic agenda; it suits our nationhood. It suits every objective that we have currently. But we want peace with dignity,” the ambassador said.
“We would not want to do it, but if it is imposed, then we would rather die with dignity than survive with indignity,” Sheikh said.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged India and Pakistan to work with each other on Wednesday to de-escalate tensions, the State Department said.
Rubio spoke separately with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Shehbaz Sharif briefed Marco Rubio on Pakistan’s perspective regarding recent developments in South Asia, following the Pahalgam incident.
While condemning terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, PM Shehbaz underscored Pakistan’s leading role in the war against terror and its sacrifice of over 90,000 lives and over $152 billion in economic losses.
“Pakistan is focusing on a matter of a deliberate, considered, pronounced shift of our foreign policy, a pivot from geopolitics to geoeconomics,” Rizwan Saeed Sheikh told Newsweek.
“We are focused on the geoeconomics side of our geography and our foreign policy. We are currently economically ascendant,” the official said, stressing that Pakistan only needed a “peaceful neighbourhood” in terms of the broader region.
Moreover, the envoy said the attack could be a “false flag operation” conducted to intentionally lay the blame on Pakistan.
He acknowledged he could not yet back up the claim, but there was “enough circumstantial evidence, history, […] immediate backdrop and setting […] to entertain that possibility.
Speaking about India’s unilateral suspension last week of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), Sheikh warned that if there was “even an attempt or a semblance of an attempt” to stop or hold water, then it would be a declaration of war.
