UN Secretary-General Offers To Restart Talks Between India And Pakistan Over Kashmir

The United Nations has come up with an unsolicited offer to restart talks between India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir dispute.

Secretary-general Antonio Guterres has assured that diplomatic efforts are underway to re-initiate a dialogue between India and Pakistan for resolving the decades-old Kashmir dispute, Radio Pakistan reported.

Guterres, who took over as UN secretary-general in December last year, said that he met Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif thrice and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi twice to bring them to the negotiating table, it reported.

He expressed concern over the escalating tensions between the two countries amid repeated violations on the Line of Control (LoC). Ceasefire violations and cross-border firing by Pakistani security forces along the LoC and the international border with India have increased manifold between 2014 and 2017. The Pakistani troops have been using mortars and heavy weapons in the recent attacks.

The India-Pakistan composite Dialogue was cancelled in 2014 after Pakistan High Commissioner refused to call off talks with Kashmiri separatist leaders, despite India's objections to it.

India has maintained that Kashmir is a bilateral issue and there is no scope for third party mediation. In March this year, it turned down a suggestion from the UN secretary general's office that the new chief of the organisation may offer to mediate between New Delhi and Islamabad on Kashmir.

With inputs from ANI.