India downgrades ties with Pakistan

Makkah Region Deputy Governor Prince Saud bin Mishal bin Abdulaziz accompanies India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he cuts his two-day trip short to Saudi Arabia, following a suspected militant attack near south Kashmir's Pahalgam, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, April 22, 2025. Saudi Press Agency/Handout via REUTERS

India downgrades ties with Pakistan after attack on Kashmir tourists kills 26

By Fayaz Bukhari, Sakshi Dayal and YP Rajesh April 23, 2025

• Summary

• India, Pakistan ties deteriorate further after New Delhi announcement
• India suspends key water sharing treaty, closes only land border crossing
• India cancels special visas, further downgrades diplomatic missions
• Pakistan PM calls meeting Thursday to discuss response
• Kashmir attack worst on civilians in India since 2008 Mumbai shootings

SRINAGAR/NEW DELHI, April 23 (Reuters) - India announced a raft of measures to downgrade its ties with Pakistan on Wednesday, a day after suspected militants killed 26 men at a tourist destination in Kashmir in the worst attack on civilians in the country in nearly two decades.

Diplomatic ties between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours were weak even before the latest measures were announced as Pakistan had expelled India's envoy and not posted its own ambassador in New Delhi after India revoked the special status of Kashmir in 2019.

Pakistan had also halted its main train service to India and banned Indian films, seeking to exert diplomatic pressure.

Tuesday's attack is seen as a setback to what Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have projected as a major achievement in revoking the semi-autonomous status Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed and bringing peace and development to the long-troubled Muslim-majority region.

On Wednesday, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told a media briefing that the cross-border involvement in the Kashmir attack was underscored at a special security cabinet meeting, prompting it to act against Pakistan.

He said New Delhi would immediately suspend the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty "until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism."

The treaty, mediated by the World Bank, split the Indus River and its tributaries between the neighbours and regulated the sharing of water. It had so far withstood even wars between the neighbours.

Pakistan is heavily dependent on water flowing downstream from this river system from Indian Kashmir for its hydropower and irrigation needs. Suspending the treaty would allow India to deny Pakistan its share of the waters.

India also closed the only open land border crossing point between the two countries and said that those who have crossed into India can return through the point before May 1.

With no direct flights operating between the two countries, the move severs all transport links between them.

Pakistani nationals will not be permitted to travel to India under special South Asian visas, all such existing visas were cancelled and Pakistanis in India under such visas had 48 hours to leave, Misri said.

All defence advisors in the Pakistani mission in New Delhi were declared persona non grata and given a week to leave. India will pull out its own defence advisors in Pakistan and also reduce staff size at its mission in Islamabad to 30 from 55, Misri said.

"The CCS reviewed the overall security situation and directed all forces to maintain high vigil," Misri, the most senior diplomat in the foreign ministry, said referring to the security cabinet.

"It resolved that the perpetrators of the attack will be brought to justice and their sponsors held to account...India will be unrelenting in the pursuit of those who have committed acts of terror, or conspired to make them possible," he said.

There was no immediate response to the Indian announcement from Pakistan's Foreign Office.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called a meeting of the National Security Committee on Thursday morning to respond to the Indian government’s statement, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar posted on X.

Chart shows the number of tourists visiting Kashmir region annually between 2015 and 2024. There was as surge in the footfall in the past three years, peaking at 3.5 million in 2024.

TOURIST BOOM

, opens new tabIndia's response came a day after the attack in the Baisaran Valley in the Pahalgam area of the scenic, Himalayan federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

The region has been at the heart of India-Pakistan animosity for decades and the site of multiple wars, insurgency and diplomatic standoffs.

The dead included 25 Indians and one Nepalese national and at least 17 people were also injured in the shooting that took place on Tuesday.

It was the worst attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai shootings, and shattered the relative calm in Kashmir, where tourism has boomed as an anti-India insurgency, opens new tab has waned in recent years.

A little-known militant group, the "Kashmir Resistance," claimed responsibility for the attack in a social media message. It expressed discontent that more than 85,000 "outsiders" had been settled in the region, spurring a "demographic change".

Indian security agencies say Kashmir Resistance, also known as The Resistance Front, is a front for Pakistan-based militant organisations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen.

Pakistan denies accusations that it supports militant violence in Kashmir and says it only provides moral, political and diplomatic support to the insurgency there.

"We are concerned at the loss of tourists’ lives," Pakistani foreign ministry spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan said in a statement earlier on Wednesday. "We extend our condolences to the near ones of the deceased and wish the injured a speedy recovery."

Chart shows the number of civilians and security forces killed in the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir, India, from 2000 to 2024.

SETBACK TO MODI

In Kashmir, security forces rushed to the Pahalgam area and began combing the forests there in search of the attackers.

Police also released sketches of three of the four suspected attackers, who were dressed in traditional long shirts and loose trousers and one of them was wearing a bodycam, one security source said.

There were about 1,000 tourists and about 300 local service providers and workers in the valley when the attack took place, he said.

On Wednesday, the federal territory shut down in protest against the attack on tourists, whose rising numbers have helped the local economy.

Protesters turned out in several locations shouting slogans such as "Stop killing innocents", "Tourists are our lives", "It is an attack on us."

"I want to say to the people of the country that we are ashamed, Kashmir is ashamed," former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said. "We are standing with you in this time of crisis."

Airlines were operating extra flights through Wednesday from Srinagar, the summer capital of the territory, as visitors were rushing out of the region, officials said.

Militant violence has afflicted Kashmir, claimed in full but ruled in part by both Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan, since the anti-Indian insurgency began in 1989. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, although violence has tapered off in recent years.

Reporting by Fayaz Bukhari; Additional reporting by YP Rajesh, Sakshi Dayal, Nigam Prusty and Surbhi Misra in New Delhi, Sudipto Ganguly and Shilpa Jamkhandikar in Mumbai, and Charlotte Greenfield in Islamabad; Writing by YP Rajesh; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Raju Gopalakrishnan, Sharon Singleton, Aidan Lewis and Diane Craft

Exclusive: US-China fentanyl talks

U.S. President Donald Trump displays a presidential public health emergency declaration on the nation's opioid crisis in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., October 26, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

Exclusive: US-China fentanyl talks hang by thread amid trade war

By Michael Martina - Reuters-April 23, 2025

Summary

• Counter narcotics talks continue despite trade tensions
• Trump wants China to punish sellers of fentanyl precursors
• China demands end to ‘unjustified’ tariffs for cooperation
• Trump team says Chinese offers so far are in ‘bad faith’

WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - Talks continue between the U.S. and China on tackling the fentanyl epidemic amid the bitter trade war between the world’s two largest economies, four U.S. officials familiar with the discussions told Reuters, even as American negotiators claim the Chinese are failing to negotiate in good faith.

The two sides are exchanging intelligence about traffickers and communicate frequently. But Beijing’s proposals to help resolve the crisis thus far are inadequate, the people said, testing the patience of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has pursued a more confrontational stance with China on drugs than did his predecessor Joe Biden.

Washington says Chinese chemical manufacturers and exporters provide the majority of precursor chemicals used by drug cartels to produce synthetic opioids, the cause of nearly 450,000 U.S. overdose deaths. China has long defended its tough drug laws and record of cracking down on smugglers, and says America must get a handle on its own addiction woes.

“The abuse of fentanyl in the United States is a problem that must be confronted and resolved by the United States itself,” Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, told Reuters.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has engaged in direct talks with Chinese counterparts, mostly between the top staff at the Chinese embassy in Washington and the U.S. National Security Council, the four U.S. officials said. Staff at the U.S. embassy in Beijing have also been involved.

Trump negotiators have conveyed his desire for swift action by Chinese authorities to prosecute and convict China-based producers and sellers of precursors feeding the fentanyl trade, the U.S. officials said. China, in turn, has offered to regulate additional fentanyl precursor chemicals beyond those it already controls, a proposal the Americans say falls well short of what they’re looking for.

"Talk is cheap," one of the U.S. officials said, adding the two sides were largely "at an impasse."

In response to questions from Reuters about the counternarcotics talks, an administration official said the U.S. might consider additional punitive measures to compel China to take meaningful action on fentanyl precursors, including sanctions on Chinese banks. “Nothing is off the table,” the person said.

Reuters reporters last year purchased 6.6 kilos of precursors and pill-making equipment online from Chinese sellers who openly market to the illegal drugs trade as part of a multi-part investigation into fentanyl's secretive global supply chain. As part of that series, “Fentanyl Express,” reporters detailed U.S.-China counternarcotics talks held during the Biden administration, negotiations that failed to wrest major concessions from Beijing, and previewed a more antagonistic approach planned by the second Trump administration.

Among Trump’s first moves was imposing tariffs now totaling 20% on Chinese imports over Beijing’s alleged failure to stem the flow of fentanyl precursors to drug cartels. Other rounds of tariffs in the president’s trade war have slapped baseline duties of 145% or higher on many Chinese goods, levels China has cautioned would undermine talks on counternarcotics.

"If (the U.S.) truly wants to address the fentanyl problem, it needs to revoke the unjustified tariffs, engage in equal consultation with China, and seek mutually beneficial cooperation," said Liu, the Chinese embassy spokesman.

Beijing in the past has suspended dialogue on drugs when angered by Washington, doing so after a 2022 visit to Taiwan by then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Biden got those talks back on track, and negotiations have continued under Trump.

'BAD FAITH'

Since returning to the White House, Trump has named the opioid crisis as one of his top foreign policy priorities. He has designated drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Some Canadian and Mexican goods have also been slapped with so-called fentanyl tariffs. But Trump has reserved particular vitriol for China, accusing Beijing of "actively sustaining and expanding the business of poisoning our citizens, opens new tab."

Biden’s measured approach in engaging Beijing yielded some small wins but no dramatic breakthrough, something Trump’s team views as a failure. They see tariffs as a tool for compelling Chinese cooperation, despite China’s warnings to the contrary.

Following Trump’s initial tariffs over fentanyl, China offered to schedule two precursor chemicals: 4-Piperidone and 1-boc-4-piperidone.

That concession was easy for Beijing to make, the U.S. officials said, because China was already obligated to do so.

That’s because those chemicals were placed under international control in 2024 by the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs. China is a member of that commission, and thus bound to regulate those precursors. Work on scheduling them is underway, according to a March report by the Chinese government on its fentanyl-control efforts.

Trump negotiators were underwhelmed. The Chinese offering “to do something that they've already agreed to, it's essentially negotiating in bad faith," a second U.S. official said.

Since Trump escalated the tariffs in recent weeks, Beijing has made additional proposals to schedule several more precursors, the U.S. officials said, an offer the Americans still deem insufficient.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement after Reuters published this article that it was "obvious to everyone who has goodwill and who has ill intentions," and that the U.S. approach will “seriously undermine China-U.S. counternarcotics dialogue and cooperation.”

During Trump’s first term, China did take some steps to constrict the synthetic opioid pipeline. At the time, most fentanyl sold on U.S. streets was made in China. In 2019, Beijing placed fentanyl and its analogs under national control, effectively ending illicit exports of the finished product. But Chinese chemical companies quickly pivoted to supplying ingredients to the Mexican cartels that took over production, U.S. authorities say.

What the Trump team wants now is for China to crack down on Chinese chemical manufacturers and sellers catering to that illicit trade. Many market their wares openly online. Beijing has failed to make such prosecutions a priority, one of the U.S. officials said, despite evidence and leads supplied by the American side.

“Start putting big, important people behind bars as a signal to the whole industry or black market," the first official said. "We just haven't seen that."

The Biden administration, too, pressed China to require its chemical sector to vet customers and better monitor where their exports are going.

But China has resisted out of concern that too much regulation would hamper the growth of its powerful chemical industry. Many chemicals used to make synthetic opioids also have legitimate uses. Tsang Wai-hung, an official with China's National Narcotics Control Commission, last year told Reuters that it’s the responsibility of importing countries – not Chinese chemical companies – to investigate sketchy buyers suspected of purchasing legal precursors to manufacture fentanyl.

Tsang directed questions to China’s Ministry of Public Security, which oversees the National Narcotics Control Commission. The ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

China last year said it had targeted internet advertising related to fentanyl and its precursors, shuttering more than a dozen online platforms and hundreds of stores.

But recent Reuters interviews with more than 50 fentanyl users in Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, and Columbus, Ohio, showed the drug remains plentiful and cheap.

A third U.S. official warned that Trump could resort to more tariffs if he felt that China was dragging its feet.

Liu, the Chinese embassy spokesman, said his country won’t sit idly by.

“China never accepts power politics or hegemony,” Liu said. “If the United States insists on applying pressure and even goes down the path of extortion, China will surely take resolute countermeasures.”🔺

Reporting by Michael Martina in Washington; Additional reporting by Antoni Slodkowski in Beijing; Editing by Marla Dickerson

Ukraine defiant on U.S. pressure

Ukraine defiant on U.S. pressure as Trump accuses Zelensky of ‘boasting’

A woman walks Tuesday near an apartment building hit by a Russian airstrike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. (Reuters)

Ukraine is insisting on a full ceasefire in order to negotiate with Russia, as U.S. officials — hoping for a quick solution — backed out of London talks.

The Washington Post April 23, 2025 

By Siobhán O'Grady, Steve Hendrix and Adam Taylor

KYIV — President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance insisted Wednesday that Ukraine needed to make concessions to ensure peace, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to push back and demand that Russia must accept a full ceasefire before negotiations.

Trump accused Zelensky on Wednesday of “boasting” after the Ukrainian leader told reporters the day before that Kyiv will never recognize Crimea as Russian territory. “He can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We are very close to a Deal, but the man with ‘no cards to play’ should now, finally, GET IT DONE.”

Trump’s post came shortly after Vance warned that the White House could walk away from its own peace deal if progress is not made soon.

Zelensky responded in a late-evening message that there were “many emotions” throughout the day but said that Ukraine was grateful for its partners. The Ukrainian leader added that he hoped the United States would comply with its past decisions, sharing a link to the declaration made by the first Trump administration that refused to recognize Russian sovereignty of Crimea.

The 2018 declaration, made by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, called the Crimean Peninsula a “territory seized by force in contravention of international law.”

U.S. officials presented a proposal last week that apparently included leaving Russia with 20 percent of the Ukrainian land it now occupies, while also denying Ukraine NATO membership and security guarantees. Washington has also proposed U.S. recognition of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea as well as the eventual lifting of sanctions on Moscow. Trump wrote Wednesday that despite Zelensky’s comments, Washington is not asking Ukraine to recognize Crimea as Russian.

Washington’s growing rift with Kyiv over its refusal to accept talk of territorial concessions without an initial truce played out publicly earlier Wednesday, as European officials, set to meet a high-level Ukrainian delegation in London, had to downgrade the talks after top U.S. officials abruptly canceled plans to attend.

After his delegation arrived in London, Zelensky doubled down on the need for a full ceasefire, pointing to a Russian drone attack that struck a bus of factory workers in the country’s Dnipropetrovsk region, killing nine people and wounding dozens of others.

“We in Ukraine insist on an immediate, full, and unconditional ceasefire,” Zelensky announced Wednesday. “We are also ready for an immediate ceasefire at least for civilian targets and have already stated this. This should be a shared first priority with all partners — saving lives.”

His comments demonstrate a growing willingness in Kyiv to push back on U.S. pressure for a deal at any cost, especially after months of anxiety in Ukraine after Trump and Vance’s dressing down of Zelensky in the Oval Office spurred brief military aid and intelligence cuts. Talk of an immediate ceasefire has ramped up after several major Russian attacks on civilians, including one that hit a playground and another that struck civilians on Palm Sunday.

Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, who has been overseeing the minerals deal Trump is seeking to ink with Ukraine, also wrote an unusually strongly worded message on X on Wednesday, declaring that “Ukraine is ready to negotiate — but not to surrender.”

“There will be no agreement that hands Russia the stronger foundations it needs to regroup and return with greater violence. A full ceasefire — on land, in the air, and at sea — is the necessary first step. If Russia opts for a limited pause, Ukraine will respond in kind,” she wrote.

She also said Ukraine will never recognize Russian occupation of Crimea and will require “binding security guarantees” if NATO denies Ukraine membership.

Lower-level talks took place Wednesday in London, but “the foreign minister-level meeting isn’t happening,” said a diplomat familiar with the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations after Secretary 0f State Marco Rubio canceled and the other foreign ministers followed suit.

Rubio had been scheduled to fly to London on Tuesday night. Steve Witkoff, a special envoy and close ally of Trump’s who is central to White House efforts to broker an end to the war, also dropped out. Witkoff will travel to Moscow for meetings on Friday, according to a person familiar with his schedule who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the envoy’s plans.

The State Department played down the significance of Rubio’s last-minute decision to skip the London meeting, made just hours before he was scheduled to take off.

“Secretary Rubio is a busy man,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said Tuesday. “While the meetings in London are still occurring, he will not be attending, but that is not a statement regarding the meetings. It’s a statement about logistical issues in his schedule.”

The meetings in London were attended by retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for the Ukraine war. Kellogg wrote on social media that talks had been “positive” and that it was time to “move forward” on Trump’s directive to end the war. “Stop the killing, achieve peace, and put America First,” Kellogg wrote.

Vance, traveling in India on Wednesday, repeated warnings that the U.S. would walk away from its efforts to broker a peace accord if Moscow and Kyiv didn’t reach an agreement soon.

“We’ve issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it’s time for them to either say yes or for the United States to walk away from this process,” he told reporters in Agra while visiting the Taj Mahal. “We’re going to see if the Europeans, the Russians and the Ukrainians are ultimately able to get this thing over the finish line.”

He said the proposal would freeze the current battle lines where they are today while a long-term diplomatic settlement was achieved. Both sides would have to give up some territory they currently control, Vance said.

The Russians, watching from the sidelines, said the collapse of the London talks showed how far apart Ukrainian and American officials remain on the basic contours of a peace deal.

“As far as we understand, it has not yet been possible to reconcile positions on some issues, which is why this meeting has not taken place yet,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday. “We continue our contacts with the Americans. We have no contacts with the Europeans; we have no contacts with the Ukrainians, either, although President [Vladimir] Putin remains open to such contacts in the interest of reconciliation.”

Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican, Andrii Yurash, called for high-level talks to resume in Rome this weekend, when Zelensky, Trump and other leaders are expected to attend the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday.

“Any number of meetings at various levels is entirely possible,” Yurash said during a television appearance in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s hopes for progress on a viable ceasefire ahead of any concessions are grounded in the unrelenting Russian attacks on the country.

In addition to the drone attack that killed the factory workers Wednesday, Russia attacked energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s Kherson region, said the head of the region’s military administration, Oleksandr Prokudin. He also called on local residents to limit their use of electricity as workers rushed to try to repair damage from the strikes.

The prospects of a ceasefire felt even more distant early Thursday local time, as Russia launched a large-scale air attack on Kyiv. Air raid sirens blared, then gunfire and explosions echoed throughout the city center as troops tried to shoot down missiles and drones overhead.

Hendrix reported from London and Taylor from Washington. Natalie Allison in Agra, India, and Serhiy Morgunov in Potsdam, Germany, contributed to this report.🔺