Bhatiya Janata Party on Tuesday reacted angrily to the US President Donald Trump’s remarks on Kashmir and said such statements only underscores “the biggest problem in the US system”. “POTUS’ statement on Kashmir underscores the biggest problem in the US system today,” tweeted BJP general secretary Ram Madhav.
He further wrote, “With expert India and South Asia hands like Lisa Curtis in White House and the State Dept, if he (President Trump) makes such a statement then there is something fundamentally wrong”. Lisa Curtis is the Deputy Assistant to President Trump and Senior Director for South and Central Asia at the American National Security Council.
The US President on Monday courted controversy when dropped a virtual bombshell triggering a major row as he said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked him, during Osaka meet in Japan in June, to ‘mediate’ between India and Pakistan on Kashmir.
The Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi quickly denied Mr Trump’s claim and even as a senior opposition leader Shashi Tharoor of Congress party has said that the US President perhaps did not have “the slightest idea of what he is talking about”. It has been long standing India’s position that Kashmir is strictly a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan.
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, not known for being very friendly to the ruling BJP, also tweeted saying: “Personally I think Donald Trump is talking out of his hat when he says PM India (Modi) asked for US involvement in solving the Kashmir issue but I would like to see MEA India call Trump out on his claim”. The conflict between India and Pakistan dates back to 1947 and both the countries have fought wars and had major conflict on this in 1999.
The Modi government has suspended diplomatic comprehensive dialogues between two countries saying Pakistan needs to ‘end’ cross border terrorism first.
