Pakistan urges US to intervene in Kashmir dispute

WASHINGTON: Pakistan called Friday for President Barack Obama to intervene in its longstanding dispute with India over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, the cause of two of the three wars the nuclear-armed rivals have fought.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi made the unusually blunt appeal for Obama to seek a resolution of the dispute when he visits India next month, saying he should ''redeem the pledge'' he made as a candidate.

The conflict over Kashmir has been the main source of friction between India and Pakistan.

Pakkistan has frequently sought outside intervention to resolve it but India vehemently opposes such involvement and the United States has traditionally stayed above the fray.

Qureshi, speaking next to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the closing day of three days of US-Pakistan talks, said Obama must get involved because a crackdown against suspected militants in Indian-administered Kashmir threatens the entire region.

''It is in the US strategic interest to work for peace, stability and resolution of the disputes in South Asia,'' he said. ''The starting point in this quest is justice for the Kashmiri people.''

''President Obama has always understood the importance of a Kashmir solution,'' Qureshi said. ''His coming visit to the region is the time to begin to redeem the pledge that he made earlier.''

As a presidential candidate in 2008, Obama suggested that the US should encourage India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir dispute so Pakistan could better focus on fighting extremists on its own territory and in Afghanistan.

Although he did not advocate direct mediation, his comments were met with disdain in India.

The violence in the region has killed at least 111 people, mostly teenage boys and young men in their 20s. Indian authorities have imposed off-and-on curfews in an attempt to halt the unrest.

Quershi expressed astonishment that the US and other major powers had said little about India's response to the protests.

''People of conscience have protested the use of force against the defenseless people of Kashmir, in particular the targeting of the Kashmiri youth,'' he said.

''But the Kashmiri mothers are baffled by the deafening silence of the world's leadership. History has proved that the force of arms cannot suppress the legitimate aspirations of the Kashmiri people.''