US President Donald Trump said on January 21 that he was "watching and closely following" the developments between India and Pakistan on Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

Trump, who had met Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, described him as "a very good friend of mine".

A White House statement quoted Trump as saying: “We are working together on some borders, and we are talking about Kashmir and the relation to what is going on with Pakistan and India. And if we can help, we certainly will be helping. And we have been watching that and following it very, very closely."



President @realDonaldTrump just held a bilateral meeting on trade with the Prime Minister of Pakistan. #wef2020 pic.twitter.com/uTVEYEJoeQ

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 21, 2020

"And, of course, we always hope that the US will play its part in resolving it because no other country can," Trump said.

Trump, likely to make his first visit to India as the US president in late February, did not explicitly confirm if he would also visit Pakistan.

"We are visiting right now, so we will not really have to. But I wanted to say hello for both a relationship standpoint... we have had a great relationship," he said.

The US president sparked a controversy in 2019 when he claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked him to mediate on the Kashmir issue when they met on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Japan's Osaka. Trump made the statement while meeting Khan at the White House.

This claim was rejected by the Indian government. India has maintained that the Kashmir issues can only be discussed bilaterally and is not open to a third-party intervention.