Pakistan summons US diplomat after Trump envoy’s comments

Remarks on Jammu and Kashmir by Sergio Gor have turned into a diplomatic spat 

Pakistan on Wednesday summoned the top US diplomat in Islamabad to lodge a “strong demarche” over remarks made by Washington’s ambassador in New Delhi that Jammu and Kashmir is an “important part of India.” 

Sergio Gor, who is also the US Special Envoy to South and Central Asia, made the comments in Srinagar, the part of Kashmir administered by India, on Wednesday. Gor, a close confidant and former business partner of US President Donald Trump, is on a two-day trip to India’s Jammu and Kashmir state and the federally administered Ladakh region.

”Kashmir is an important part of India,” Gor told reporters after meeting Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. “It is an incredibly beautiful place.” 

India and Pakistan, which gained independence when Britain partitioned its colonial territories in South Asia in 1947, have competing claims on Kashmir.

Hours after the comments, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry summoned Charge d’Affaires Natalie Baker – the top US envoy in Islamabad – and lodged a protest over Gor’s “factually incorrect remarks” and “irresponsible statement.”

“It was underscored that Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally recognized disputed territory, awaiting final disposition in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and the aspirations of the Kashmiri people,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan clashed briefly with missiles and drones last year after 26 people were killed in a terror attack in Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-backed terror groups. 

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Gor’s comments have come despite a close rapport between Trump and Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir. Trump had claimed to have intervened to stop the India-Pakistan clash – an assertion that New Delhi dismissed. Islamabad, however, credited the US president with ending the short conflict and recommended him for the Nobel Peace Prize last year. 

Trump has, in return, called Munir “my favorite field marshal.” Islamabad has also been acting as a mediator to end the Mideast war, which was triggered by US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

Indian authorities on Thursday used a bulldozer to remove temporary structures, traffic bollards, and barricades outside the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, in an apparent retaliatory action after Pakistan carried out a similar drive outside the Indian mission in Islamabad on Monday.