Warning that the Kashmir crisis could get worse, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Asad Majeed Khan on August 12 raised the possibility that Islamabad might redeploy troops from the Afghanistan border to the Kashmir frontier, a shift that could complicate American peace talks with the Taliban, now said to be in the final stages, reports Daily Times. In an interview with the New York Times editorial board, Majeed Khan emphasised that the Kashmir and Afghanistan issues were separate and that he was not attempting to link them. On the contrary, he said, Pakistan hoped the American talks with the Taliban would succeed and that Islamabad was actively supporting them. “We are doing all that we can and will continue to do so,” Ambassador Khan said. “It’s not an either-or situation.” Nonetheless, the Pakistani envoy said that India’s crackdown on Indian-held Kashmir as it annexed the state “could not have come at a worse time for us”.