By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday that India and Pakistan should de-escalate tensions, but he added that the U.S. cannot control the nuclear-armed Asian neighbors and a war between them would be “none of our business”.
“We want this thing to de-escalate as quickly as possible. We can’t control these countries, though,” Vance said in an interview on Fox News show “The Story with Martha MacCallum.”
“What we can do is try to encourage these folks to de-escalate a little bit, but we’re not going to get involved in the middle of war that’s fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America’s ability to control it,” he added.
India is an important partner for Washington, which aims to counter China’s rising influence, while Pakistan remains a U.S. ally despite its diminished importance after Washington’s withdrawal from neighboring Afghanistan in 2021.
Analysts and some former officials have said U.S. involvement to achieve diplomatic goals in Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza may make Washington leave India and Pakistan on their own in the early days of their tensions, without much direct pressure from the U.S. government.
Pakistan and India accused each other of launching drone attacks, and Islamabad’s defence minister said further retaliation was “increasingly certain,” on the second day of major clashes on Thursday. Two days of fighting killed nearly four dozen people.
The latest escalation in the decades-old India-Pakistan rivalry began on April 22 when Islamist militants killed 26 people in India-administered Kashmir in an attack that New Delhi blamed on Islamabad, which denied the accusations and called for a neutral probe.
“Our hope and our expectation is that this is not going to spiral into a broader regional war or, God forbid, a nuclear conflict,” Vance said on Thursday.
Washington has held regular talks with both in recent days, including on Thursday when Secretary of State Marco Rubio held calls with Pakistan’s prime minister and India’s foreign minister while urging them to de-escalate and have direct dialogue.
U.S. President Donald Trump called rising tensions a shame. On Wednesday, he said he hoped the two countries will stop now after going “tit-for-tat.” The State Department urged both countries to work towards what Washington terms as a “responsible solution.”
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Michael Perry)
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