Pakistan’s envoy to the United States has asked President Donald Trump to step in and help ease soaring tensions with India, according to media reports. Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Rizwan Saeed Sheikh told Newsweek the other day that for a president “standing for peace in the world as a pronounced objective during this administration” – referring to Trump – there was no “higher or flashier flashpoint” than the Kashmir issue. “If we have a president who is standing for peace in the world as a pronounced objective during this administration, to establish a legacy as a peacemaker – or as someone who finished wars, defied wars and played a role in de-confliction, resolving the disputes – I don’t think there is any higher or flashier flash point, particularly in nuclear terms, as Kashmir,” Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Rizwan Saeed Sheikh told Newsweek. “We are not talking about one or two countries in that neighbourhood who [sic] are nuclear-capable. So, that is how grave it is,” he said in an interview with the US magazine. In his inaugural speech as the US president, Trump had said: “My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.” A ceasefire, which has now been violated, was secured between Israel and Hamas following Trump’s election, and he has also been engaging with Ukraine and Russia to halt their war. According to Newsweek, Sheikh contended that the Trump administration would need to pursue a more comprehensive and sustained initiative than in past US attempts to defuse crises that have erupted between Pakistan and India. “I think with this threat that we are facing, there is a latent opportunity to address the situation by not just [focusing] on an immediate de-escalatory measure, or a de-escalatory approach,” the envoy said. He called for a more durable and lasting solution to the Kashmir dispute, “rather than allowing the situation to stay precarious and pop up again and again at the next drop of a hat on this side or that side”. During his interview, Sheikh emphasised that the Kashmir issue was the root cause of all troubles between India and Pakistan. “Until and unless that final settlement is made and the resolutions dictate the prescribed solution is allowed to play out, we will all keep having these problems,” Sheikh said. “That’s why we insist on the United States and others playing a role in this situation and getting the de-confliction part activated,” he added. If the long-standing dispute was resolved, the ambassador said, the population of South Asia could live in peace. “All the other issues between Pakistan and India are not major issues,” he noted. “We do not want to fight, particularly with a bigger country,” Sheikh said. “We want peace. It suits our economic agenda; it suits our nationhood. It suits every objective that we have currently. But we want peace with dignity. “We would not want to do it, but if it is imposed, then we would rather die with dignity than survive with indignity,” Sheikh asserted. The call for Trump to play a role in reducing the tensions came the same day as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was expected to speak to top Pakistani and Indian leaders. In his phone call with Rubio, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif urged the US to press India to “dial down the rhetoric and act responsibly”. In a readout of the call with PM Shehbaz, issued by the US State Department, Spokesperson Tammy Bruce said: “Both leaders reaffirmed their continued commitment to holding terrorists accountable for their heinous acts of violence.”