WASHINGTON: Recent developments on the Line of Control have set the region back, Ambassador Sherry Rehman said on Tuesday while urging the United States to help resolve the 65-year-old Kashmir dispute.

“Because of its strategic proximity to both Pakistan and India, the United States is uniquely poised to play a role in the resolution of the dispute which can become a nuclear flashpoint,” said the ambassador.

Addressing a Kashmir Day meeting at the embassy, she noted that the current geo-political situation also required the US to help resolve this dispute.

“The Kashmir dispute has tied down the resources of the two biggest countries in South Asia, placing a drag on their political and economic discourse,” she noted.

Earlier, the Kashmiri community in the US capital observed the Kashmir Day and at a joint meeting near Washington they condemned the secret execution of Kashmiri youth, Mohammad Afzal Guru, at New Delhi’s Tihar jail on Feb 9.

They noted that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948, recognised each person’s right to life.

It categorically states that: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” said a joint statement they adopted at the meeting.