Kashmir a bilateral issue, India tells US after Trump offers help

India on Wednesday reiterated its stand on Kashmir following the remarks by US President Donald Trump where he offered to “help” resolve the issue on Tuesday on the sidelines of World Economic Forum being held in Davos.

“Kashmir is a bilateral issue and will have to be solved bilaterally,” MEA officials reiterated India’s stated position while speaking to India Today TV.

The officials said the government’s stand is consistent that “talks and terror cannot go together. For any conversation to take place, Pakistan will have to shun terror first.”

At an interaction with the press on Tuesday ahead of the meeting with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, Trump repeated his mediation offer once again.

“We will discuss the situation in Kashmir. We can meditate on the issue. We are working with Pakistan on some borders and we were talking about Kashmir in relation to what is going on between Pakistan and India. If we can help, we certainly will be helping. We have been watching that and following it very very closely,” he said.

Trump had made similar offers last year. India had categorically rejected the offer to mediate. In one instance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a joint media interaction with Trump had said that Kashmir issue is a bilateral matter and India would not like a third-party mediation.

IThe Davos meeting between Trump and Khan was the third one-on-one meeting between the two leaders in less than a year. It was attended by delegations from both sides as they discussed issues relating to regional security, Afghan peace process, US-Iran tension and Jammu and Kashmir.