US says its message to India, Pak is to ed-escalate and talk

Washington, May 9 (IANS) The US on Thursday said its message to India and Pakistan amid the current tensions following the Pahalgam terrorist attack has been two fold: de-escalate and keep talking.

Referring to the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's calls to India's External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif earlier in the day, State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce said at the daily briefing that US has been focussed on "two things".

"That it should not escalate, and communication was fundamentally key, that there should be talks, that there should not be silence, and that America, obviously was at the centre of this, in speaking with a variety of leaders of both countries over the last two days," Bruce said.

She also said: "The message from the Secretary, and, I think, from the US as a whole in general, is that the violence should stop that military action, war, as we've seen in that region, certainly in the Middle East, has clearly, for generation, proven that it is not a solution, because it never ends. There has to be a change in that regard. So obviously, when it comes to solving a problem, this administration has made itself clear that war, the military, more violence is not a solution. Diplomacy is a solution."

Asked if Secretary Rubio has offered to mediate, Bruce said the situation is "very delicate and dangerous" and "where there's negotiations happening, we are not going to be speaking about the details".

She went on to say that "it's important to not put details in the middle of the media, the worldwide media, when the work is being done privately between leaders, and we need to really try to keep it that way".

When asked if a statement in the readout of Secretary Rubio's call with Prime Minister Sharif -- that called Pakistan to end any support for terrorism -- was an endorsement of Indian position that Pakistan has been a supporter of terrorism, Bruce said, "Well, you know, obviously in today's world, that's a call that we've been making for decades. It is the dynamic that we've seen in the Middle East disrupting lives. And clearly what happened in Kashmir is awful, and we've all of course, we send our condolences. The world has rejected the nature of that kind of violence overall, of course, and certainly the President has and continues to but at this moment in time, there is, like one thing that has to stop, which is a back and forth and a continuation of this. And that is what we're focused on right now."

"The Secretary expressed sorrow for the reported loss of civilian lives in the current conflict. He reiterated his calls for Pakistan to take concrete steps to end any support for terrorist groups," Bruce had said earlier in a statement on Rubio's call with Sharif.

The US has not hesitated to call out Pakistan on its support for terrorism.

"The US has foolishly given Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools," President Donald Trump had written in a post on X, in his first term in 2018, "They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!"

--IANS

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