Many a slip...

US President Donald Trump's remarks about a possible mediation role in the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India have caused a furore in India and expressions of 'triumphalism' in Pakistan. Trump said during the meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan in the White House that he would be willing to play a mediatory role in the dispute if both sides asked him to. Further, he made the startling revelation that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in fact asked him to play such a role in their interaction 'two weeks ago [2019 G20 Osaka summit]'. Predictably, given India's long standing position that based on the Simla Accord of 1972 and the Lahore Declaration of 1999, the Kashmir issue could only be discussed bilaterally, with no room for third party mediation, the development caused a political storm in India. The clarification by India's External Affairs Minister Subramanyam Jaishankar denying Trump's claim in both houses of the Indian parliament failed, however, to satisfy the raging opposition, who insisted Modi himself must clarify the matter before parliament. Meanwhile, much to India's chagrin, the White House has refuted Indian foreign ministry's denial through his Chief Economic Advisor, Larry Kudlow, who asserted that 'Trump doesn't make things up'. In Pakistan, the media and commentators delightedly hyped up the development as a major diplomatic victory for Pakistan. Perhaps a more sober reflection on the issue would remind us of a few undeniable ground realities. India insisted in the Simla Accord in 1972 that the Kashmir issue would henceforth only be discussed bilaterally, based on its international embarrassment over many years after the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru took the dispute to the UN Security Council after the 1947-48 Kashmir war soon after Independence. The move came to haunt India in international forums since then. The fall of Dacca (Dhaka) in 1971 left little room for manoeuvre. The then President and civilian Chief Martial Law Administrator Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who came to power after the debacle, conceded the demand in the light of the fact that 90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war and slivers of territory along the Kashmir Line of Control were in Indian hands. Since then, and even more so after the Lahore Declaration signed by the then visiting Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif in 1999, India has invoked the bilateral basis for any talks about Kashmir to spare itself past blushes in the international arena. However, the stalled bilateral dialogue has found shipwreck on New Delhi's insistence that alleged 'terrorism' in Kashmir emanating from Pakistani soil be stopped before the dialogue can be resumed. That is where matters stand for the moment.
Pakistani media and commentators are rightly cock-a-hoop over the fact that a sitting US president has seen fit to even talk about Kashmir, let alone offering his good offices for mediation. The general run of such coverage and comments dwells on the superpower status of the US and how it could therefore help leverage India off its intransigent perch. Since Washington is currently hoping for and wooing Islamabad to help extricate it from the unwinnable Afghan war, it may simply be a no-cost lubrication of the US's desire for Pakistani cooperation in this matter. Interpretations that tend towards seeing Trump's remarks as a 'quid pro quo' for Pakistan's help in the Afghan conflict may be stretching it too far.
But on cooler reflection, it is probable that Trump and Modi have a tacit understanding that Trump would arbitrate rather than mediate and declare the de facto position in Kashmir as the settled position in line with what India has proposed on several occasions. So, this may indeed be a snare for an easy way out to resolve the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India that would cut out the will of the Kashmiris from the settlement. Let us not forget that in the global and regional context, it is India the US sees as a strategic partner against the rise of China and in the US's own interests.