Shehbaz Sharif urged India for comprehensive talks during his UN General Assembly address.
He credited Donald Trump with timely intervention that prevented escalation into war.
Pakistan denies responsibility for May Kashmir attacks and claims defensive success.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called on India to engage in dialogue during his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, highlighting the role of U.S. President Donald Trump in averting a wider conflict.
“Pakistan stands ready for a composite, comprehensive and result-oriented dialogue with India on all outstanding issues. South Asia requires proactive rather than provocative leadership,” Mr. Sharif told the UN assembly, according to AFP.
Mr. Sharif spoke a day after meeting Mr. Trump at the White House alongside Pakistani military chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, who reportedly suggested that the U.S. President deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for facilitating a ceasefire in the May confrontation with India.
“Had Mr. Trump not intervened in a timely way and decisively, the consequences of a full-fledged war would have been catastrophic,” Mr. Sharif said, AFP reported. He also described Mr. Trump’s leadership as “bold and visionary.”
The May clash followed attacks by Islamist gunmen in Kashmir that left almost all victims from the Hindu community dead. In response, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered strikes on Pakistani military positions. Pakistan denied any involvement in the attacks.
In his UN speech, Mr. Sharif characterised the May operation as a defensive success. “India came shrouded in arrogance but we sent them back in humiliation, delivering a bloody nose,” he said, according to AFP.
Mr. Trump announced a ceasefire after four days of fighting, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicating that India and Pakistan would hold discussions on their disputes at a neutral site. Mr. Modi, however, played down Mr. Trump’s role. Relations between the U.S. and India have since cooled, with the Trump administration imposing tariffs on India over oil imports from Russia.
The U.S. engagement with Pakistan under Mr. Trump marks a shift from the policies of former President Joe Biden, who maintained distance from Islamabad, concerned about Pakistan’s links with the Taliban during America’s two-decade war in Afghanistan. Shortly before the May conflict, a company run by the Trump family signed an agreement with Pakistan on cryptocurrency, AFP reported.
Pakistan has long sought an international role in resolving the Kashmir issue, but India has consistently rejected such intervention.
(With inputs from AFP)
