NEW YORK: The United States has urged India to quickly ease restrictions imposed in occupied Kashmir as Prime Minister Imran Khan stressed the need to let the Kashmiris decide their future.

“We hope to see rapid action — the lifting of the restrictions and the release of those who have been detained,” Alice Wells, the top State Department official for South Asia, told reporters in New York.

“It is their (Kashmiris) right to decide, whatever they want,” the prime minister said at New York’s Asia Society on Thursday night when asked if Pakistan would “free Azad Kashmir too”.

“This is an open offer, why don’t India and Pakistan both allow them to decide their future,” he added, earning a warm applause from the audience.

Mr Khan, however, reminded the audience that after annexing Kashmir on Aug 5, India announced that its next target was AJK and pledged to occupy the entire region.

At a briefing earlier on Thursday, Ms Wells also reiterated President Donald Trump’s willingness to mediate between India and Pakistan to ease rising tensions over Kashmir.

And the prime minister called on the United Nations Security Council to implement its decades-old resolutions that gave them the option to join either India or Pakistan.

“The world would benefit from reduced tensions and increased dialogue between the two countries [India and Pakistan] and, given these factors, the president is willing to mediate if asked by both parties,” Ms Wells said.

The prime minister, when asked what role the US could play in reducing India-Pakistan tensions over Kashmir, said he had already explained this to President Trump.

He said he had discussed the Kashmir dispute with Mr Trump during his visit to the White House in July as well, but it’s “the second time when (on Monday) I managed to explain it and that’s why he said it is a complicated and difficult issue”.

The United States, he added, can use its influence and persuade India to give Kashmiris the right to decide their future and can also encourage the United Nations to play its role in settling one of the oldest issues on its agenda.

President Trump met both Imran Khan and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi this week. Both are attending the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Ms Wells also referred to the restrictions India imposed in occupied Kashmir on and after Aug 5. The clampdown has now continued for over 50 days.

“The United States is concerned by widespread detentions, including those of politicians and business leaders, and the restrictions on the residents of Jammu and Kashmir,” she said.

“We look forward to the Indian government’s resumption of political engagement with local leaders and the scheduling of the promised elections at the earliest opportunity.”

President Trump has repeatedly offered arbitration to reduce tensions between India and Pakistan, despite New Delhi’s continued rejection of his offers. On Wednesday, the US president said he encouraged India and Pakistan to work out their differences in separate meetings with their prime ministers this week. “I said, `Fellas, work it out. Just work it out’,” he said.

He had first offered to mediate during a meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan in July.

Asked at the Asia Society if Pakistan still considered China its strongest ally, the prime minister said China helped Pakistan when its economy had hit rock bottom and Islamabad could never forget that.

He disagreed with a suggestion that China’s loans were a threat to Pakistan’s sovereignty. “Absolutely not, no reason for that (to feel threatened). They have gone out of their way to help us. The debt part is quite low.”

Mr Khan’s positive remarks regarding China’s economic cooperation were appreciated in Beijing too where a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said: “China highly appreciates Prime Minister Khan’s positive remarks on China-Pakistan relations. We totally agree with what he said.”

The prime minister, while describing the difference between an ethical and a career politician, said he had great admiration for politicians like “Mahatma Gandhi, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Nelson Mandela”.

In reply to a question about recognising Israel, Mr Khan said: “Pakistan has a very straightforward position. There has to be a just settlement, a homeland for Palestinians before Pakistan can recognise Israel.”

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2019