US Vice President J.D. Vance said India and Pakistan should de-escalate tensions, but added that the United States cannot control its nuclear-armed Asian neighbors.
“We want this to de-escalate as soon as possible. But we cannot control these countries,” Vance said in an interview with Fox News’ “The Talk with Martha MacCallum.”
“What we can do is try to encourage these people to de-escalate a little bit, but we are not going to get involved in the middle of a war that is 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 is seeking to counter China’s growing influence, while Pakistan remains a US ally despite its diminished importance after the US withdrawal from neighboring Afghanistan in 2021, according to Reuters, reported Hina.
Analysts and some former officials say that U.S. involvement in pursuing diplomatic goals in Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza could force Washington to leave India and Pakistan alone amid the tensions, without much direct pressure from the U.S. government.
Pakistan and India have accused each other of launching the drone strikes, and Islamabad’s defense minister has said further retaliation is “increasingly certain.”
The latest escalation in the decades-old India-Pakistan rivalry began on April 22 when militants killed 26 people in Indian-administered Kashmir in an attack that New Delhi blamed on Islamabad, which has denied the allegations and called for a neutral investigation.
“Our hope and our expectation is that this will not turn into a wider regional war or, God forbid, a nuclear conflict,” Vance said.
Washington has been in regular contact with both sides in recent days, including on Thursday when Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Pakistan’s prime minister and India’s foreign minister, urging them to de-escalate and engage in direct dialogue.
US President Donald Trump has called the rising tensions a disgrace. On Wednesday, he said he hoped the two countries would now stop. The State Department urged both countries to work towards what Washington called a “responsible solution”, Al Jazeera reported.
