Washington continues to deal separately with India, Pakistan: Senior US official

New York, Sep 25 (IANS) A senior State Department official has assured that Washington continues to deal with India and Pakistan separately and sees the relationships as "quite different", discounting apprehensions that a re-hyphenation may be happening.

Briefing reporters on Wednesday (local time), the official said that on Kashmir, the US continues with its "long-standing policy that this is a direct issue between India and Pakistan".

While President Donald Trump is ready to help if he is asked to use his good offices, "we have no interest in it and he has enough crises on his hands", the official said.

"We will leave that up to India and Pakistan to solve," the official added.

"We continue to see India and Pakistan in two sort of separate ways, seeing them on their own in the relationship, looking at an America First policy that advances our interest," the official said.

"They're quite different relationships."

Some observers in India saw a creeping "re-hyphenation" by the US -- linking its ties to both New Delhi and Islamabad -- because of Trump's oft-repeated assertion that he resolved the conflict between India and Pakistan in May and reset relations with Islamabad.

India has denied any US mediation and said the conflict was ended by the two neighbours themselves.

But the official doubled down on Trump's assertion and dismissed New Delhi's denial of a US role, saying, "The Indian government has a domestic constituency they have to also speak to."

"But it is a fact that the United States was involved in that crisis," the official added.

The briefer spoke on the condition of being identified only as a senior State Department official in order to openly discuss key diplomatic issues in the region amid what the official described as "turbulence" in India-US relations.

On Islamabad's ties with Beijing, the official expressed some concern.

"In general, regarding their relationship with China. It obviously continues to be a concern of ours," the official said.

"But we really are trying to look at Pakistan through the lens of the US-Pakistan relationship, and that relationship standing on its own, and figuring out what areas we can work together, and that really remains our focus," the official said.

--IANS

arul/sd/