India's Kashmir move threatens Afghan peace efforts: US paper

NEW YORK: India’s move to revoke disputed Jammu and Kashmir's special status threatens to complicate US efforts to forge a peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan, says The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

The newspaper also said Prime Minister Imran Khan's "successful" visit to Washington, during which President Donald Trump offered to mediate the decades-old dispute over the Himalayan state, might have factored in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Kashmir move.

"The spike in tensions between Pakistan and India over the change of Kashmir’s status come as Taliban peace talks appear to have reached a critical final stage," WSJ, a major US financial newspaper, said in a dispatch from New Delhi on Wednesday.

It said, "Senior US officials flew into New Delhi and Islamabad—trips they and their host countries said were planned before India acted on Monday—as Washington sought to build regional support for a critical agreement with the Taliban that Pakistan is expected to play a key role in helping deliver and US officials hope India will support."

Pakistan, according to the dispatch, said the tensions with India forced Islamabad to focus its attention and troops on its eastern border with India, not its northwestern border with Afghanistan. It also pointed out to Prime Minister Imran Khan's warning that India’s actions could trigger a war, the dispatch noted .

"While India regards Kashmir’s status as a domestic matter, its move to put separate disputed parts of it claimed by Pakistan and China under New Delhi’s direct control has broader implications in a region where the two nuclear-armed countries have fought multiple wars against India, which also is nuclear armed," WSJ said.

The dispatch said, "Kashmir was quiet on Tuesday, as telephone and Internet connections were suspended. Authorities, backed up by thousands of paramilitary soldiers that were added to the usual heavy military presence over the weekend, imposed a complete ban on meetings and rallies, kept local political leaders confined to their homes, closed schools and restricted public thoroughfares in the capital Srinagar, local police said.

"China said the Indian move would 'undermine China’s territorial sovereignty,' while Pakistan’s army chief said his country would go to any extent to support Kashmir’s population against New Delhi’s action to exercise more control over the area.

"The Kashmir turmoil, however, could threaten the Trump administration’s push for a deal if Pakistan-India tensions become a lasting distraction or spill over to a fresh military confrontation. They exchanged airstrikes in February, and almost continuously exchange gun and artillery fire across a line of control in Kashmir where their two armies have faced off for many decades."

The newspaper said the Trump administration invited Imran Khan to Washington in July to enlist further help in persuading the Taliban to agree to a cease-fire and deal directly with the Afghan government about the country’s future—key elements of any deal for US officials.

It said President Trump created an uproar by saying he had been invited by the leaders of India and Pakistan to mediate the Kashmir dispute.

"Pakistan has long called for international intervention in Kashmir, but India reiterated that it has long refused any third-party involvement, making clear it hadn’t invited Mr Trump to intervene.

"The Pakistanis’ successful Washington visit may have persuaded Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his dominant Bharatiya Janata Party to press ahead urgently with the Kashmir move, which the party had long advocated.

"Pakistan accuses the BJP, which promotes the Hindu religion as the essence of India, of ethnic cleansing in Kashmir, a Muslim-majority area where outsiders will now be able to settle more easily."