INDIA-PAKISTAN TENSION: KSA, Iran push for peace as gunfire traded again

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Iran and Saudi Arabia sought to defuse India-Pakistan’s ongoing crisis as mediators while US president Donald Trump termed the tension as 1,500-years-old problem.

Iran has offered Pakistan to act as a mediator in its conflict with India, Tehran’s foreign ministry said Saturday while Saudi Arabia is trying to defuse tensions between the neighbouring countries, after a deadly attack in the disputed Kashmir region, a senior Saudi official told AFP on Friday.

‘The Kingdom is undertaking efforts to prevent an escalation between India and Pakistan,’ the senior Saudi official said, on condition of anonymity. ‘The two countries are allies of Saudi Arabia and we do not want the situation to get out of control.’

Saudi foreign minister Faisal bin Farhan has held separate phone calls with his Indian and Pakistani counterparts, his office said on Friday.

During the discussions, he ‘reviewed developments in the situation and efforts made to ease tensions’.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi ‘declared Iran’s readiness to extend its goodwill efforts to help reduce tensions’ in a phone call Friday with his Pakistani counterpart Ishaq Dar. Araghchi said on X that his country was ‘ready to use its good offices’ to resolve the conflict.

US president Donald Trump on Friday downplayed concerns over mounting tensions between India and Pakistan, saying the dispute between the nuclear-armed neighbours will get ‘figured out, one way or another.’

Trump was asked aboard Air Force One about crumbling relations between India  and Pakistan. ‘There have been tensions on that border for 1,500 years so, you know, it’s the same as it has been,’ Trump told reporters. ‘But they’ll get it figured out, one way or another.’

‘There’s great tension between Pakistan and India but there always has been,’ Trump said.

Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged gunfire overnight along the Line of Control that separates the two countries in contested Kashmir for a second day running, the Indian army said Saturday.

India’s army said ‘unprovoked’ small arms firing was carried out by ‘multiple’ Pakistan army posts ‘all across the Line of Control in Kashmir’ overnight from Friday to Saturday.

‘Indian troops responded appropriately with small arms,’ it said in a statement. ‘No casualties reported.’

There was no immediate confirmation from Pakistan, but the two sides had confirmed gunfire between their respective forces the previous night.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s leader said his nation was open to a neutral investigation on Saturday into a deadly attack in Indian-run Kashmir that New Delhi blames on Islamabad, and that has sent fraught relations into a tailspin with soldiers exchanging gunfire across their contested frontier.

Islamabad denies involvement in the April 22 attack on tourists in Pahalgam, where a gang of gunmen killed 26 men in the worst attack on civilians in Kashmir for a quarter of a century.

But India is adamant in it is accusation that Pakistan is supporting ‘cross-border terrorism’.

Indian police have issued wanted posters for three men—two Pakistanis and an Indian—who they say are members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group, a UN-designated terrorist organisation.

Rejecting Indian claims, Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday said the country was ‘open to participating in any neutral, transparent and credible investigation’ into the attack.

Indian security forces have launched a giant manhunt for those responsible for the attack in Pahalgam, blowing up homes in Kashmir of Indian citizens suspected to be linked to the attack.

‘Our valiant armed forces remain fully capable and prepared to defend the country’s sovereignty,’ Sharif said at a military ceremony in Abbottabad.

Inda’s information ministry on Saturday warned broadcasters to ‘refrain from showing live coverage of defence operations’ in the ‘interest of national security’, and referencing the 1999 Kargil conflict with Pakistan.

The United Nations has urged the neighbours, which have fought multiple wars, to show ‘maximum restraint’.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence in 1947. Both claim the territory in full but govern separate portions of it.

Rebel groups have waged an insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir since 1989, demanding independence or a merger with Pakistan.

AFP