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Updated: Sep 26, 2019 12:49 IST

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he is willing to arbitrate or mediate the Kashmir dispute as India and Pakistan, two nuclear armed states, remained “at very serious odds” and that during his meetings with their leaders earlier in the week, he told them, “fellas, work it out”.

Addressing a customary news briefing marking the end of his three-day UNGA visit, Trump said Kashmir was discussed at the meeting and “I offered, whether it’s arbitration or mediation, or whatever it has to be, I’ll do whatever I can.”

“Because they’re at very serious odds right now, and hopefully that’ll get better.”

Describing Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Imran Khan as “good friends of mine”, the US president said that he told them “‘Fellas, work it out. Just work it out.’ Those are two nuclear countries. They’ve got to work it out.”

Trump met Pak PM Imran Khan for a bilateral on Monday and PM Modi on Tuesday and he appeared to have pushed for the two countries to resolve their differences bilaterally, without inserting himself as an arbitrator or a mediator, which he had appeared to be pushing for earlier.

But in a sudden reversal, which diplomats and foreign officials dealing with him have come to expect without even pretending to be surprised, he has put himself back in the mix.

External affairs ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar said Kashmir was indeed discussed at Modi’s meeting with Trump but, he added pointedly, only in the context of counter-terrorism, and not, by implication, as a dispute with Pakistan that India needed third-party help to resolve.

To President Trump’s renewed offer to arbitrate or mediate, the spokesperson pointed to India’s position on the issue as conveyed by Prime Minister Modi to Trump in Biarritz, France on the sidelines of the G-7 summit in August.

On the questions of talks with Pakistan, Kumar pointed to Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale’s remarks earlier. “But for that to happen, we expect some concrete steps to be taken by Pakistan. And we do not find any effort by Pakistan taking those steps,” the top Indian diplomat had said on Tuesday.

India has made an end to Pakistan’s use of terrorism a pre-condition for talks, and the Imran Khan government has given no such assurances yet, even as at it has sought to portray itself as an aggrieved party whose overtures for talks have been repeatedly rebuffed by India.

But Indians have come to expect the unexpected from Trump on this issue and do not react with the same degree of alarm to new remarks and tweets as they did initially, and have sought to be content, at times, with merely conveying their own position to him clearly and getting an acknowledgment.

President Trump first made an offer to mediate when prompted to it by Prime Minister Imran Khan at a White House meeting in July. India dismissed that offer even before the two of them had finished their discussions. But he pressed on, in remarks in response to reporters, never on his own.

But on Wednesday, Trump brought up Kashmir and his offer to mediate unprompted, for the first time, in his scripted opening remarks for the news conference. But he did close it by saying he asked the countries to sort it out among themselves, without his intervention.