BY Iftikhar Ali
UNITED NATIONS, May 08 (APP): UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Thursday pressed on his call to India and Pakistan to de-escalate amid riding tensions between the two South Asian neighbours.
“Our comment is the same as what we’ve been saying and what the Secretary-General made clear to you at the start of this week – that the world cannot afford another conflict between India and Pakistan,” Farhan Aziz Haq, the UN deputy spokesperson, said in response to a question about the situation between India and Pakistan at the regular noon briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.
“He (the UN chief) has offered his good offices, but certainly, we encourage all efforts to de-escalate the situation and encourage both India and Pakistan to exercise maximum restraint,” Farhan Haq added.
Guterres’s call came as the U.S. top diplomat, Marco Rubio, Thursday engaged with India and Pakistan, underscoring the need to immediately de-escalate their standoff .
Secretary of State Rubio had telephonic conversations with Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar– his second interaction with the two leaders since Monday.
“The Secretary emphasized the need for immediate de-escalation,” the State Department said in separate readouts of the conversations.
Rubio “expressed U.S. support for direct dialogue between India and Pakistan and encouraged continued efforts to improve communications.”
President Donald Trump also asked the two countries on Wednesday to step back from the escalating confrontation, which has pushed South Asia to the brink of a war between the two nuclear powers.