US Vice-President JD Vance has said the US hopes that Pakistan would cooperate with India to hunt down the Pakistan-based terrorists responsible for the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, reported IANS. “Our hope here is that India responds to this terrorist attack in a way that doesn’t lead to a broader regional conflict,” Vance said in an interview on Fox News’ ‘Special Report with Bret Baier’ show.
“And we hope, frankly, that Pakistan, to the extent that they’re responsible, cooperates with India to make sure that the terrorists sometimes operating in their territory are hunted down and dealt with,” the US VicePresident added. During the interview with Fox News, Vance made his first public remark on the attack, which left 26 people dead on April 22.
Rising tensions Vance and his family were in India on a four-day visit when the carnage – the worst since the Pulwama attack on CRPF personnel in 2019 – took place. The Vice-President’s remarks assume significance amid rising tensions between India and Pakistan in the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on April 30, amid escalating tensions between the two countries following the terror attack.
Rubio asked Pakistani officials to cooperate in the investigation and work to de-escalate tensions between them. India downgraded its ties with Pakistan following the Pahalgam attack and took several diplomatic measures, including the pausing of the Indus Waters Treaty, expelling all Pakistani military attaches, closing its airspace to Pakistani airlines and the shutting down of the Attari-Wagah border.
The Vice-President sought to cast the ousting of US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz as a “promotion”, blaming the media for framing his departure from the top national security post as a firing.
“He wasn’t let go. He is being made Ambassador to the United Nations, which, of course, is a Senate-confirmed position. I think you can make a good argument that it’s a promotion,” Vance said in the Fox News interview. He continued, “The media wants to frame this as a firing. Donald Trump has fired a lot of people. He doesn’t give them Senate-confirmed appointments afterwards. What he thinks is that Mike Waltz is going to better serve the administration — most importantly, the American people – in that role.”
Vance said that Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s job is “safe” when asked if there are further changes coming to the President’s senior echelon of officials, and in particular if Hegseth’s job is secure. “We’ve got total faith in Pete,” he added.
