Face of Nation : India was quick to turn down US President Donald Trump’s offer to mediate between India and Pakistan on the Kashmir issue, and refuted his claim that PM Narendra Modi had asked for it. Observers, including American ones, immediately came out to say it was near impossible that an Indian PM had sought intervention in the Kashmir dispute.
India repeated it long-standing position that Kashmir is an issue that could only be solved bilaterally, in accordance with the 1972 Shimla Agreement and the 1999 Lahore Declaration.
The US State Department quickly softened Trump’s remarks, and reiterated the US stand that Kashmir is a bilateral issue and that the US is willing to help in whatever way India and Pakistan seek.
India has held ever since the Shimla Agreement was signed that resolving the Kashmir was solely in the hands of India and Pakistan. Even as Indian forces beat back the Pakistani military and tribal militia invasion of Jammu and Kashmir to prevent it from joining India in 1947, India approached the United Nations over the issue. The UN passed Resolution 47 calling for a plebiscite. The first step towards the plebiscite was the withdrawal of all Pakistani troops from Jammu and Kashmir. This was to be followed by the withdrawal of a majority of Indian troops. Then, a referendum was to be held. However, Pakistan never took the first step.
India holds that the signing and ratification of two bilateral agreements that explicitly mention Kashmir have rendered the United Nations’s intervention null and void. Despite signing and ratifying one treaty committing to bilateral solutions to all disputes in 1972, and affirming that commitment in another treaty in 1999, Pakistan has tried to get other global powers involved in the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. Primarily, Islamabad has done this as a tactic to raise international attention and pressure on India.
