ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday welcomed the United States President Donald Trump’s recent offer to mediate between Islamabad and New Delhi over the Kashmir dispute, saying that the American leader’s desire to reduce tensions in South Asia was a positive sign and reflected his interest in issues faced by the region.

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said President Trump had recognized Jammu and Kashmir as a dispute between Pakistan and India that needed to be solved. The minister’s statement came only a day after President Trump described Kashmir as a “big problem” between the two arch-rivals during his visit to India.

The US president said that Kashmir was a “thorn in a lot of people’s sides” and reiterated his offer to mediate between the two countries to ease tensions in the region. “If anything I can do to mediate, I’ll do,” Trump said on Tuesday, adding that Pakistan figured in his talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“Pakistan welcomes his [President Trump’s] offer,” the foreign minister said on Wednesday in a statement.

Since 1947, Kashmir, a Muslim majority region with 86,000 square miles of territory, remains disputed between Pakistan and India. Both countries claim it in full but only control parts of it. The nuclear-armed neighbors have also fought wars over the territory, but the dispute continues to linger on.

The foreign minister said that the American president’s stated desire for reduction in tensions, greater stability and harmony for all the nations of South Asia was also a “positive sign of his personal engagement on issues faced by our region.”

Qureshi added that Trump’s acknowledgement that the US had “very good relationship with Pakistan” was a clear manifestation of the upward trajectory in the ties of the two countries.

Reacting to the US president’s mediation offer, however, Pakistan’s opposition parties called it an “eyewash,” saying that if the American administration had shown seriousness over the Kashmir dispute, eight million Kashmiris would not have been living under a security lockdown ordered by the Modi administration for the last six months.

“If President Trump really wants to help Pakistan resolve the Kashmir conflict, he should openly support the cause at the United Nations,” Chaudhry Manzoor, senior leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, said while talking to Arab News.

He added that Trump’s mediation offer did not have any value since India had already turned it down. “Being a super power, the Trump administration should pressure the UN to hold a plebiscite in Kashmir, instead of just issuing statements,” he argued.

Kashmir affairs analysts on the other hand insist that the US has an important role to play in the peaceful resolution of the Kashmir conflict as the demand of Kashmiris for freedom, liberty and justice was in line with the American and international values.

“President Trump appears sincere in his mediation offer, and we in Pakistan should work with him,” Ahmed Quraishi, a Kashmir affairs analyst, told Arab News. “The shift on Kashmir in Washington is a welcome change.”

Quraishi said that Pakistan should treat President Trump’s offer as an important opening and an opportunity that should be exploited to engage the foreign policy elites in Washington and important world capitals to “turn this into something that could lead to conflict resolution.”

“India needs to seize this opportunity and Indian leaders should respond positively to President Trump’s offer,” he said, adding that the onus was on India as the largest country in the region to show leadership and magnanimity.

“We can coexist in this region and work together for trade and prosperity while respecting each other’s borders and rights,” Quraishi added.