Stable Afghanistan in interest of India, Pakistan: US

Washington, Oct 14 (IANS) The US has reiterated that peace in Afghanistan will be in the interest of both India and Pakistan, the two South Asian nuclear-armed neighbours.

"With regard to Afghanistan, it’s in the interests of both India and Pakistan to see a stable, secure Afghanistan emerge from the years of fighting," US State Department deputy spokesperson Mark Toner said in the daily press briefing here on Thursday.

He was responding to a question on a group of Pakistani envoys carrying the message that Pakistan would not let have peace in Afghanistan unless US helped "solve" the Kashmir issue.

"And certainly, in the interest of regional security as well, there’s a lot of contentious issues, as you note, between India and Pakistan, but the two countries we would encourage to take a more conciliatory approach to each other and to work through some of these issues for the greater good of the region," Toner said.

Tensions between India and Pakistan have escalated with the Indian Army carrying out surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC) last month in Jammu and Kashmir on terror launch pads.

This came in the wake of the September 18 cross-border terror attack on an army base at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir in which 19 Indian soldiers lost their lives.

India has blamed the Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed for the attack.

In September, India, the US and Afghanistan held a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York, the first such since 2013.

Both the US and Afghanistan appreciated India’s role in development work in the war-torn South Asian nation.