WASHINGTON: Amid rising tensions between Pakistan and India, the United States on Monday urged both countries to avoid escalation and resolve issues through dialogue.
“We don’t have any comment on the underlying allegations, but of course, while we’re not going to get in the middle of this situation, we encourage both sides to avoid escalation and find a resolution through dialogue,” said State Department’s spokesperson Matthew Miller, responding to a question about claims that India had ordered killings in Pakistan.
Recently, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, in an interview with broadcaster CNN News18, said India will enter Pakistan to kill anyone who escapes over the border after trying to carry out terrorist activities in the country.
The Indian defence minister admitted to the Modi-led government’s policy of orchestrating killings in Pakistan during a televised interview.
The minister’s comments came a day after the British publication, The Guardian, revealed in a report that the Indian government had killed about 20 people in Pakistan since 2020 as part of a broader plan to eliminate terrorists residing on foreign soil.
The report in the UK paper came months after Canada and the United States accused India of killing or attempting to kill people in their countries.
In the report, the UK daily newspaper claimed that the New Delhi government “assassinated individuals in Pakistan”. The publication said that New Delhi has adopted a policy of targeting those it considers hostile to India on foreign soil.
Following the defence minister’s claims, Foreign Office denounced his remarks, terming them as “hyper-nationalistic sentiments” fuelled for “electoral gains”.
The FO said: “India’s ruling dispensation habitually resorts to hateful rhetoric to fuel hyper-nationalistic sentiments, unapologetically exploiting such discourse for electoral gains.”
“India’s assertion of its preparedness to extra-judicially execute more civilians, arbitrarily pronounced as ‘terrorists’, inside Pakistan constitutes a clear admission of culpability. It is imperative for the international community to hold India accountable for its heinous and illegal actions,” the statement added.
