According to an Economic Times report, Prime Minister Modi and US President Donald Trump never discussed the Kashmir issue at the G20 Summit in Japan last month. India and the US have no record of Kashmir being discussed by the heads of two countries when they met in Osaka last year, the report says.
ET report claims that both the countries went through their official records of the meeting and found no such records. It is believed that the US has informally confirmed with India that neither the US Department of State nor the White House have any such record of Trump’s statement on Kashmir. On India’s side, the Ministry of External Affairs has also checked the records and confirmed that the Kashmir issue was not even discussed informally.
The report further states that during the 2015 Vibrant Gujarat Summit, the then Secretary of State John Kerry had tried to broach the subject with PM Modi. However, PM Modi had drawn the line at Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Following that, the topic was never broached again.
Last night the United States President Donald Trump stirred up a controversy by saying that Prime Minister Modi has asked him to mediate between India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir issue. However, the Ministry of External Affairs promptly issued clarification that India has not sought any such help.
He had made this comment while addressing a joint press conference with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in Washington DC. Within an hour, the MEA spokesperson said that no such request thas been made by PM Narendra Modi to the US President.
It has been India’s longstanding position that Kashmir is a bilateral issue and no third party intervention is welcome. Pakistan has been trying to bring the issue to the international level, have tried to bring various countries and UN as mediators, but India has been successfully resisting that attempt.
It may be noted that although president Trump claimed about Modi requesting him to mediate on Kashmir, in the official statement issued by White House on Imran Khan’s visit, it was not mentioned. The statement does not even mention Kashmir. Therefore it can be presumed PM Modi has not made any such request with the president, and he may have misunderstood something Modi said during their meeting at the G-20 summit in Japan last month.
