Indian diplomacy faces big test on Kashmir after Trump's offer to broker a solution

US President Donald Trump’s claims of brokering a ceasefire between the warring militaries of India and Pakistan on Saturday have come with a twist which is proving to be a predicament for Indian diplomacy.

The big challenge for Indian diplomacy is how to handle the highly unpredictable US President and stave off his attempts to initiate mediation in Kashmir and lose out on a huge strategic and diplomatic advantage.

Trump posted on a social media platform on Saturday: “I will work with you, both to see if, after a ‘thousand years,’ a solution can be arrived at concerning Kashmir”.

The Indian stand, in accordance with the provisions of the Simla Agreement of 1972, has been to not allow external or third-party intervention on Kashmir. Basically, the postulate is that the Kashmir issue is a bilateral one that will be resolved bilaterally with no scope for third-party involvement.

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Meanwhile, Pakistan had been rooting for a change in the Simla Agreement so that a third party could bring it to broker a resolution of the issue.

The low-intensity warfare against India and the acts of terror by Islamabad-backed instruments and entities are part of the Pakistani narrative to draw the attention of the world to Kashmir and thereby internationalising the issue—something India has successfully thwarted.

Trump’s assertion would therefore amount to a negation of everything that India had stood for and maintained.

This is not the first time Trump has offered to mediate. In 2019, during his first tenure as the US President, he had offered his ‘mediation’ services, only to be turned down brusquely by India.

The latest developments are a fallout of the breakout of hostilities between the two South Asian neighbours after Pakistan-backed terrorists gunned down 26 civilians in Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22.

India hit back with strikes against terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and also deep inside Pakistan under a military operation codenamed ‘Sindoor’.

Counter-strikes by the Pakistan military had spiked up tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations raining global concerns. 

Defence