WHILE India has put Pakistan in diplomatic isolation, Pakistani envoys in Washington are all out to enlist US support on the Kashmir issue. They are trying to counter accusations against Pakistan’s support for terror groups, provocative nuclear postures and is fairly or generally as a nation state. It has threatened to form an axis with China, Russia and Iran should the US refuse to intervene on the Kashmir issue. It has made peace with Afghanistan and indicated that it can undermine US and Indian efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan though that has been a victim of Pakistani depredations. Pakistan has pointed out that peace in Kabul hinges on stability in Kashmir and cannot be delinked from Pakistan having its say in Srinagar. Pakistan’s envoys take a dim view of the US allowing Kashmir to burn. They have also argued that Kashmir is the core issue in India-Pakistan relations and there can be no peace between the two countries without a settlement of the problem. Even the nuclear dimension cannot be divorced from the issue as both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers.
So far Pakistani blackmail has had little success in Washington. The US says it is hard for it even to intervene in Syria and there is no reason why it should butt in on Kashmir. The situation in Kashmir is much better than in the conflict-zones of the world, especially Syria. Pakistan is fulminating against human rights violations in Kashmir. In reply, US experts emphasise that the human rights record in GilgitBaluchistan, Pak occupied Kashmir and even in Sindh are simply appalling. So Pakistan has little moral authority to bellyache about human rights violations in Kashmir. It is advantage India.
