The United States has said that it was “encouraged” by Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s visit to Pakistan this week in a sign of thawing relations between the Islamabad and New Delhi.
Speaking to reporters during the daily briefing, US State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf said that the US welcomed the visit. “We certainly were encouraged that they (India and Pakistan) decided to resume dialogue.”
Jaishankar’s visit saw the first senior-level diplomatic interaction between the two nuclear-armed neighbours for the first time since prime ministers of India and Pakistan met in New Delhi last May.
While New Delhi maintained Jaishankar was in Pakistan as part of his visit to the SAARC states, Pakistan saw this as resumption of the foreign secretary-level talks from which India had pulled out in August 2014.
“Both India and Pakistan stand to benefit from practical cooperation and an improved relationship,” Harf said, adding that better ties would be “good for regional peace and stability in South Asia”
“In general, obviously, we (US) think cooperation is a good thing.”
