Voicing strong support for Pakistan-India rapprochement, the United States has welcomed the just-concluded meeting between foreign ministers of the South Asian neighbors, saying improvement in their ties would be good for the region.
The State Department was especially pleased at the breakthrough that Islamabad and New Delhi were able to achieve in the Pakistani capital on mutually easing visa processing for visitors in some categories.
“We strongly support increasing contact at the high level between Pakistan and India. We think the trip was a good thing, and we were pleased to see the visa progress that they made, which supports progress that they had made in the past on economic issues” Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said.
She was commenting on talks between Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and her Indian counterpart S M Krishna in Islamabad over the
past few days.
The spokesperson reiterated Washington’s backing for peace
moves between the two South Asian nations as they continue to make headway on some issues since resumption of the peace process, which was stalled in the aftermath of November 2008 Mumbai attacks.
According to experts, while their peace overtures definitely give rise to hope, the two South Asian powers’ persistence with quest for peace will be tested when they try to address some contentious issues like the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, which defined their relationship in the last half century.
At the briefing, the State Department spokesperson noted that Pakistan-India progress towards peace “is very much in line with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s New Silk Road vision that the connections in that whole neighborhood will grow stronger so that prosperity will grow for everyone.”
At the same time, Nuland noted in reference to obstacles, “obviously, there’s more work to do.”
“But we – whenever we see the Indian side, whenever we see the Pakistani side, we offer support for their efforts to talk to each other, because it’s in the interest not only of those two countries but the whole region.”
The State Department said Secretary Clinton, who was traveling in the Far East and Russia during the Pakistani-Indian meeting, followed the progress.
