WASHINGTON: Pakistan has asked the United States to resume the balancing role that it played in South Asia before it started to build a strategic partnership with India.

“We are saying to the US administration that the United States always brought a balance in SA, but this recent tilt has created an imbalance,” said Pakistan Ambassador Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhary.

“This tilt has also emboldened the Indian government to go for a heavy-handed approach, which is the most manifest in occupied Kashmir,” said Mr Chaudhary while briefing the US and Pakistani journalists on Friday.

“The policy of Hindutva will not bode well for either India or the region but what happens in India is for them to worry about, not for us,” he said. “Peace in South Asia is better served if the United States assumes the role of a balanced power-player.”

A fact-sheet presented to the media noted that Indian forces had killed 20 innocent Kashmir in the last few days. It described the uprising in India-held Kashmir as a legitimate struggle for the realisation of their right of self-determination, not terrorism.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2018