US welcomes rescheduling of India-Pakistan talks

Welcoming the decision to reschedule talks between the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan, the US has urged the two countries to stay engaged with each other. India and Pakistan announced on January 14 that they had rescheduled the talks between their foreign secretaries in the “very near future”. The goodwill gesture was noted immediately in Washington, which has been pushing to reduce tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. “We welcome the statements by both governments that Foreign Secretary talks will take place in the very near future,” a spokesman for the US State Department briefed reporters in Washington. “The normalisation of relations between India and Pakistan is vital to the security and economic prosperity of the entire region,” the US official added. In the wake of the Pathankot attacks on January 2, the dialogue process between India and Pakistan came under severe stress. However, with the two countries clarifying the rescheduling of talks, the dialogue process hasn’t been stalled totally as the high level talks are expected to resume in the “near future”.  The US policy makers have been pushing for cordial relations between the two South Asian countries, as they believe that there can be no peace in Afghanistan, if the relations between India and Pakistan do not improve. The US still has more than 900 troops in Afghanistan. “We also welcome the announcement of cooperation between Indian and Pakistani investigative agencies and support Pakistani government action based on the findings of the investigation into the Pathankot attack,” the US official said.