WASHINGTON, Aug 6: The US advised India and Pakistan on Sunday to resolve the latest row over the expulsion of diplomats between themselves.
On Saturday, India and Pakistan expelled each other’s senior diplomats, accusing them of indulging in practices “incompatible to their diplomatic status”.
“This is an issue that needs to be resolved between India and Pakistan,” said a State Department official when asked to comment on the development.
In the 1980s, when their bilateral relations were very tense, India and Pakistan regularly expelled each other’s diplomats but a tit-for-tat move at this stage has raised serious concerns about the viability of the ongoing peace process between the two neighbours.
In Washington, however, the development is seen as a ‘routine diplomatic occurrence’, as one senior diplomat put it.
Diplomatic sources recalled that last week the US expelled two Kyrgyz diplomats in retaliation for the ‘unwarranted’ expulsion last month from the central Asian nation of two American envoys.
