Marco Rubio reaches out to real centre of Pakistan power, talks to army chief

New York: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has finally reached out to the real centre of Pakistan’s power, Army Chief Asim Munir, after talks with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to de-escalate tensions with India failed.

State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce said on Friday, “Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir earlier today”.

The call came as Pakistan and India ratcheted up their confrontation, targeting places beyond Kashmir and further inside their territories.

“The US President wants to see the confrontation de-escalate as quickly as possible,” Donald Trump’s spokesperson Karoline Levitt said on Friday.

“This is something that the secretary of state and, of course, now, as our national security advisor as well, Marco Rubio, has been very much involved in,” she said.

Bruce said that Rubio offered Munir “US assistance in starting constructive talks in order to avoid future conflicts”.

She added, “He continued to urge both parties to find ways to de-escalate”.

Rubio spoke to Sharif on Thursday, and “emphasised the need for immediate de-escalation”, Bruce said in a readout of that call.

The same day, he also called India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar with a similar message urging de-escalation, while emphasising the US “commitment to work with India in the fight against terrorism”, according to the spokesperson.

After India launched ‘Operation Sindoor’, India’s National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval made the first international call to Rubio.

Rubio is also the national security advisor after Mike Waltz stepped down from the job.

India launched the operation in retaliation for an attack by a front organisation of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba in which 26 people were killed in a religiously targeted massacre in Pahalgam last month.

Earlier, Bruce laid out the US priorities in dealing with the situation, saying that there should be no escalation and the two countries should talk to each other.

“America, obviously, was at the centre of this, in speaking with a variety of leaders of both countries over the last two days,” she said.

But there have been mixed messages on the US role.

Vice President JD Vance said the conflict between the neighbours was “fundamentally none of our business”, acknowledging Washington’s inability to control the situation.

In an interview to Fox News on Thursday, he said, “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 a war that’s fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America’s ability to control it.”

Before India launched its operation, Trump took a hands-off position, saying, “I am sure they’ll figure it out one way or the other”. But has since been urging the two countries to de-escalate.

Trump is more focused on the Gaza war, where a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that Washington helped broker has broken down. Next week, he will be close to the latest conflict in South Asia. He is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, where the Gaza conflict will be high on the agenda.

–IANS