Since the India-Pakistan ceasefire holds, the situation is in a better place, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, said on Tuesday.
"We hope the ceasefire will continue to hold, and we hope that the parties will use this opportunity to address the many outstanding issues between them," Dujarric said at his routine briefing.
To a Palestinian journalist's remark, where she was showing concern over the recent speech of Prime Minister Narendra Modi indicating that the ceasefire was "very fragile," Dujarric came back with an assurance, "The ceasefire is holding." The journalist had cited a Pakistani reaction calling on India to tone down its rhetoric, which was negative about the Indian Prime Minister's comments.
Dujarric continued to underscore, "We're in a better place than we were before," marking a positive turn in the situation.
The ceasefire, which halted four days of fierce fighting, was arranged on Saturday after a call by Pakistan's Directorate General of Military Operations (DGMO) to their Indian counterparts. The escalation had started when India carried out precision strikes against terrorist infrastructure within Pakistan and its occupied Kashmir territory in response to last month's bloody massacre in Pahalgam by The Resistance Front, an anti-government militant outfit with Lashkar-e-Taiba links. Pakistan, in turn, followed up with its own strikes, further worsening the conflict.
Following the announcement of the ceasefire, Guterres hailed it as "a positive step toward ending current hostilities and easing tensions." Previously, as tensions escalated, he had urged restraint, cautioning, "The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan."
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