Ban Ki-moon hopes for 'amicable' Kashmir resolution

United Nations, June 18: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hopes Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif "will continue to engage with each other" to try to resolve the Kashmir situation "peacefully and amicably", according to Ban's deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq.

At the daily press briefing here on Wednesday, Haq side-stepped a question by a Pakistani journalist who, referring to Kashmir, wanted to know if Ban was going to "call upon India to have some sort of a dialogue with Pakistan" and mentioned US Secretary of State John Kerry's call Tuesday to Sharif.

Haq avoided saying if Ban would make a call.

"Our hope in this, is that the leaders of the two countries will continue to engage with each other and try to resolve the situation peacefully and amicably," Haq said.

"And we will see where they go with that."

Kerry has brought to the fore what he called "the recent increase in the tensions publicly between India and Pakistan".

That was the first issue that he brought up at his first press conference, since his bicycling accident last month, saying that he and Sharif had talked about it.

"It's very, very important that there be no misinterpretation or miscalculation with respect to any of the back-and-forth and the empowerment some entities might feel," he said.

Kerry added that Sharif told him about his conversation with Modi.

IANS