UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations on Tuesday reported that the US-mediated ceasefire between Pakistan and India is holding, and urged both South Asian neighbours to seize this opportunity to address their “outstanding issues” through dialogue.
“The ceasefire is holding,” the UN secretary general’s spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, said in response to a question at the regular noon briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.
“I think we have seen that we’re in a better place than we were before, and we hope the ceasefire will continue to hold,” the spokesperson said.
“We hope that the parties will use this [opportunity] to deal with a lot of the outstanding issues between them,” Dujarric added.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump called for further diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan after he “successfully brokered a historic ceasefire to stop the escalating violence between”.
“I think they are actually getting along. Maybe we can even get them together a little bit, Marco [Rubio],” Trump addressed the US Secretary of State while speaking at a forum in Riyadh.
“Where they [Pak-India] go out and have a nice dinner together,” the US president added. He said that he “used trade to a large extent” for the ceasefire.
“And I said, fellas, come on, let’s make a deal. Let’s do some trading. Let’s not trade nuclear missiles. Let’s trade the things that you make so beautifully,” Trump said.
On Monday, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that any prospective talks between Pakistan and India would focus on three main issues: the Kashmir dispute, terrorism, and water-related matters.
Speaking to a private TV channel, the Defence Minister said, “If talks are held between two nuclear-armed neighbours, they will focus on Kashmir, terrorism, and water-related matters.”
Khawaja Asif stressed that terrorism, a threat Pakistan has faced for the past two to three decades, continues to be a significant challenge for the country.
The Defence Minister also highlighted that Pakistan remains the biggest victim of terrorism, emphasising the urgency of addressing this issue in future dialogue.
Highlighting the importance of resolving the Kashmir dispute, Khawaja Asif referred to it as a golden opportunity for both nations to address long-standing tensions.
“This is a golden opportunity for both Pakistan and India to resolve the Kashmir dispute,” the minister said.
Earlier today, Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said that Pakistan did not consider deploying nuclear warheads to strike India when the tensions between the two countries mounted last week.
The deputy prime minister, in an interview with CNN, said that Pakistan “had no choice” but to launch strikes in “self-defence” following India’s May 7 cross-border attacks.
Terming India’s strikes a “war” and a “wishful attempt to establish its hegemony” in Kashmir, he said, “There are certain times when you have to take very serious decisions… We were very sure that our conventional capacity and capabilities are strong enough that we will beat them both in the air and on the ground.”
