Pakistan envoy says US ’emboldened’ India

Pakistani soldiers stand next to what Pakistan says is the wreckage of an Indian fighter jet shot down in Pakistan controled Kashmir at Somani area in Bhimbar district near the Line of Control on February 27, 2019. – Pakistan and India said on Febraury 27 they had shot down each other’s warplanes, in a dramatically escalating confrontation that has fuelled concerns of an all-out conflict between the nuclear-armed rivals. (Photo by STR / AFP)

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington voiced regret Wednesday that the United States has not condemned India’s air incursion, saying the stance “emboldened” New Delhi.

With the nuclear-armed rivals shooting down each other’s warplanes in their worst crisis in years, Pakistani Ambassador Asad Majeed Khan said the United States should have pinned blame on India.

“It is construed and understood as an endorsement of the Indian position and that is what emboldened them even more,” Khan told reporters when asked about the US statement.

But Khan said that Pakistan — which has an increasingly close relationship with China and rising friction with Washington — was eager for greater US diplomacy between Islamabad and New Delhi.

“There is perhaps no other country better placed than the United States to be able to play some role,” he said, pointing to the US relationship with both countries.

India said on Tuesday its air force conducted strikes on a militant camp inside Pakistan — the first time since 1971 it hit territory beyond divided Kashmir — after a Pakistan-based Islamist extremist group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on the Indian side of Kashmir that killed 40 troops.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in a statement after talking to his counterparts in both countries, described the Indian strikes as “counter-terrorism actions.”

While urging both sides to avoid escalation, he urged Pakistan to take “meaningful action against terrorist groups operating on its soil.”

President Donald Trump’s administration last year cut off $300 million in military aid to Pakistan, saying Islamabad had not done enough to fight extremists at home or close safe havens for militants in neighboring Afghanistan.

© Agence France-Presse

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