Pakistani envoy: U.S. 'emboldens' India amid Kashmir escalation

PanARMENIAN.Net - Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S. Asad Majeed Khan said that Washington's failure to condemn India for the recent airstrike on Pakistan has played into the hands of New Delhi, Al-Masdar News reports.

"It is construed and understood as an endorsement of the Indian position and that is what emboldened them even more," he told reporters on Wednesday, February 27.

With India and Pakistan mired in their worst crisis in decades, the envoy suggested that the US could have played a bigger role in easing the tension.

"There is perhaps no other country better placed than the United States to be able to play some role," Khan added.

Pakistan announced on Wednesday that it had downed two Indian warplanes, which entered its airspace over the disputed Kashmir border, and captured an Indian pilot.

The Indian Air Force confirmed later in the day that it had lost a MiG-21 fighter during the incident, but that a Pakistan F-16 jet had also been shot down.

This came a day after Indian jets crossed into Pakistan to bomb the biggest training camp of Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terror group which claimed responsibility for the 14 February suicide bombing of paramilitary forces in the India-governed part of Kashmir.