The United States stepped in on Wednesday to help reject a tense standoff between Pakistan and India and urged both sides to cooperate with each other to step down tension and maintain peace and security in South Asia.

The US Secretary of State initiated separate phone calls with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Minister of Indian external affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and discussed the recent situation in South Asia following the Pahagam event on April 22.

According to an official distribution in Islamabad, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif Rubio assessed from Pakistan’s perspective on recent development and urged the United States to impress India to call down the rhetoric and act responsibly.

Since last week, tensions have escalated between Pakistan and India after the latter baseless accusations against Pakistan after the Pahagam attack in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, who killed 26 tourists.

On Wednesday, India announced punitive measures, including downgrading diplomatic ties, suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), deportation of the Pakistani citizens and closing the Wagah-Attari border transition and Pakistan High Commission in Delhi.

Pakistan also gave a matching answer and closed the country’s airspace for Indian aircraft. Pakistan warned that any attempt from India to stop the flow of water to Pakistan would be considered an act of war and would get an appropriate answer.

The Prime Minister also offered Pakistan’s cooperation to India to hold a transparent investigation into the attack. Pakistan has also expressed concerned about the incident and offered compassion for the victims’ families.

In Washington, spokesman for the state department Tammy Bruce said secretary Rubio called on the Pakistani Prime Minister to condemn the Pahagam attack and cooperation in an investigation while calling on India to step down.

Secretary Rubio “talked about the need to condemn the terrorist attack on April 22 in Pahaldam,” Bruce said. The secretary “called on Pakistani officials’ cooperation to investigate this unconscious attack,” she added in a statement.

In a separate phone call with Jaisankar, “The Secretary expressed his grief to the lives lost in the horrible terrorist attack in Pahaldam, confirming the US’s obligation to cooperate with India against terrorism,” Bruce said. “He also urged India to work with Pakistan to reduce tension and maintain peace and security in South Asia.”

According to the awards issued in Islamabad, Prime Minister Shehbaz received a telephone call from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and briefed him on Pakistan’s perspective with regard to recent development in South Asia following the Pahagam event.

While condemning terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, Prime Minister Shehbaz Pakistan’s leading role in the war against terrorism and the country’s victim of over 90,000 lives emphasized and over $ 152 billion in economic losses.

Shehbaz, denoted India’s escalatory and provocative behavior deeply disappointing and disturbing, said that of India’s provocations would only serve to distract Pakistan from his ongoing efforts to defeat terrorism, especially from militant groups, including Islamic State-Khorasan (ER-K), operatively from the Debt Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Baloch Freedom (Ice), Operating from Den Afghan.

The Prime Minister rejected categorically Indian attempts to connect Pakistan to the Pahagam incident, pointing at his call to a transparent, credible and neutral study to get the facts. He urged the United States to impress India to call the rhetoric and act responsibly.

Shehbaz said it was most regrettable that India had chosen to weapon, which was the lifeline of 240 million people in Pakistan, while also emphasizing that IWT had no provision that both sides should be unilaterally interested in his obligations. He also emphasized that peaceful solution of Jammu and Kashmir -Tvisten was the only way to secure lasting peace in South Asia.

At the bilateral cooperation, the prime minister emphasized that Pakistan and the United States had worked closely together over the past 70 years, and there was much that both sides could cooperate with, including terrorist fighting and improved financial cooperation, especially the mineral sector.

He also emphasized that his government had made major economic reforms over the past year, and consequently Pakistan was now on his way to economic recovery. He conveyed his good wishes to President Donald Trump while expressing Pakistan’s desire to work closely with the US administration in all areas of mutual interest.

According to the award, State Secretary Rubio thanked the Prime Minister for the detailed conversation and emphasized the need for both sides to continue to work together on peace and stability in South Asia.

Rubio’s phone call followed a statement from the Minister of Information Atta Tarar late Wednesday that Pakistan had “credible intelligence, which India intends to start military action within 24-36 hours”.

Despite the phone calls, however, India took further steps and closed its airspace to Pakistani Airlines. The government said in a message that the ban would last from April 30 to May 23. The impact of the ban on Pakistan’s aviation industry is likely to be less.

Only Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) operates routes to Kuala Lumpur using the Indian airspace. Pia, the national carrier, said Tuesday that it had decided to avoid the Indian airspace in the wake of rising bilateral tensions.

In an exclusive interview with Newsweek, a mass -circulating US weekly magazine, Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington Rizwan Saeed Sheikh President Trump urged to step in and help ease rising tension between India and Pakistan.

“If we have a president who stands for peace in the world as a pronounced goal under this administration, to establish a legacy as a peace champion, or as anyone who ended wars, wasted wars and played a role in de-Confliction, I decided disputes, I don’t think there is anything higher or flashing flashes, especially in nuclear conditions, like Kashmir,” she said. “

“We are not talking about one or two countries in the neighborhood that is nuclear. So that is how serious it is.” Sheikh argued that the Trump administration needed a more comprehensive and sustained initiative than previously witness to taping crises between two countries.

(With input from agencies)