Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged gunfire for a second straight day on Saturday as ties plummeted between the two nuclear-armed neighbours after an attack on tourists blamed on Pakistani militants killed 26 in India’s Kashmir region.

The Indian Army said its troops responded to “unprovoked” small arms fire from multiple Pakistan Army posts that started around midnight on Friday along the 740-km (460-mile) de facto border separating the Indian and Pakistani areas of Kashmir, Reuters reported.

The Indian Army said Pakistani troops had also opened up with sporadic fire around midnight on Thursday. No casualties were reported from the Indian side, it said.

There was no immediate comment from the Pakistani military.

Kashmir’s police have identified three suspects, including two Pakistani nationals, who carried out the April 22 attack. Pakistan has denied any involvement and its defence minister has said an international investigation was needed into the attack.

After the attack, India and Pakistan unleashed a raft of measures against each other, with Pakistan closing its airspace to Indian airlines, and India suspending the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty that regulates water-sharing from the Indus River and its tributaries.

India and Pakistan have a decades-old ceasefire agreement over the disputed region of Kashmir but their troops still exchange gunfire sporadically. The two nations both claim Kashmir and have fought two of their three wars over it.

Pakistan believes an international investigation is needed into the killing of 26 men at a tourist spot in Indian Kashmir this week and is willing to work with international investigators, the New York Times reported on Friday, quoting Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif.

Asif told the newspaper in an interview that Pakistan was “ready to cooperate” with “any investigation which is conducted by international inspectors.”

India has said there were Pakistani elements to the attack on Tuesday, but Islamabad has denied any involvement. The two countries both claim the mountainous region but each controls only part of it.

Since the attack, the nuclear-armed nations have unleashed a raft of measures against each other, with India putting the critical Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance and Pakistan closing its airspace to Indian airlines.

Asif told the newspaper that India had used the aftermath of the militant attack as a pretext to suspend the water treaty and for domestic political purposes.

India, was taking steps to punish Pakistan “without any proof, without any investigation,” he added.

“We do not want this war to flare up, because flaring up of this war can cause disaster for this region,” Asif told the newspaper.

A little-known militant group, Kashmir Resistance, claimed responsibility for the attack in a social media message.

Indian security agencies say Kashmir Resistance, also known as The Resistance Front, is a front for Pakistan-based militant organisations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen.

Asif disputed that allegation in the interview. He said Lashkar-e-Taiba was “defunct” and had no ability to plan or conduct attacks from Pakistan-controlled territory.

“They don’t have any setup in Pakistan,” he said, according to the newspaper.

“Those people, whatever is left of them, they are contained. Some of them are under house arrest, some of them are in custody. They are not at all active,” the official said.

(Reuters)

U.S. President Donald Trump said he is open to meeting Iran’s supreme leader or president and that he thinks the two countries will strike a new deal on Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme.

However, Trump, who in 2018 pulled the U.S. out of a now moribund nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, repeated a threat of military action against Iran unless a new pact is swiftly reached to prevent it developing nuclear weapons.

Trump, in an April 22 interview with Time magazine published on Friday, said “I think we’re going to make a deal with Iran” following indirect U.S.-Iranian talks last week in which the side agreed to draw up a framework for a potential deal. A U.S. official said the discussions yielded “very good progress”.

Asked by Time whether he was open to meeting Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, an anti-Western hardliner who has the last say on all major state policies, or reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, Trump replied: “Sure.”

Expert-level talks are set to resume on Saturday in Oman, which has acted as intermediary between the longtime adversaries, with a third round of high-level nuclear discussions planned for the same day.

Israel, a close U.S. ally and Iran’s major Middle East foe, has described the Islamic Republic’s escalating uranium enrichment programme – a potential pathway to nuclear bombs – as an “existential threat”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for a complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, saying partial measures will not suffice to ensure Israel’s security.

Asked in the interview if he was concerned Netanyahu might drag the United States into a war with Iran, Trump said: “No.”

However, when asked if the U.S. would join a war against Iran should Israel take action, he responded: “I may go in very willingly if we can’t get a deal. If we don’t make a deal, I’ll be leading the pack.”

In March, Iran responded to a letter from Trump in which he urged it to negotiate a new deal by stating it would not engage in direct talks under maximum pressure and military threats but was open to indirect negotiations, as in the past.

Although the current talks have been indirect and mediated by Oman, U.S. and Iranian officials did speak face-to-face briefly following the first round on April 12.

The last known face-to-face negotiations between the two countries took place under former U.S. President Barack Obama during diplomacy that led to the 2015 nuclear accord.

Western powers accuse Iran of harbouring a clandestine agenda to develop nuclear weapons capability by enriching uranium to a high level of fissile purity, above what they say is justifiable for a civilian atomic energy programme.

Tehran says its nuclear programme is wholly peaceful. The 2015 deal curbed its uranium enrichment activity in exchange for relief from international sanctions, but Iran resumed and acclerated enrichment after the Trump walkout in 2018.

(Reuters)