US President Donald Trump on Friday severely criticized the terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, which killed 26 individuals, primarily tourists, and termed it as a "bad one." Trump hoped that India and Pakistan would succeed in resolving their age-old border tensions through diplomatic means.

The terror strike, which occurred on April 22 in the scenic Baisaran meadow, is being considered one of the brutal attacks in the region after the 2019 Pulwama blast. The Resistance Front, a terror outfit backed by Pakistan, has owned up to the attack.

"Kashmir Conflict Has Been Going On for 1,500 Years": Trump

Talking on board Air Force One, President Trump declared, "I am very close to India and I'm very close to Pakistan, and they've had that fight for a thousand years in Kashmir. Kashmir has been going on for a thousand years, probably longer than that. That was a bad one (terrorist attack).  I know both leaders. There's great tension between Pakistan and India, but there always has been."

Trump also addressed Prime Minister Narendra Modi directly to express his condolences and promised complete US support to take the perpetrators to task. “President Donald Trump called Prime Minister Modi and conveyed his deepest condolences at the loss of innocent lives in the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir," Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on X.

India Hits Back

In reaction to the attack on Pahalgam, India has rolled out a sequence of stern diplomatic actions against Pakistan:
• Suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty
• Shutting of Integrated Check Post (ICP) at Attari
• Suspension of the SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme for Pakistani nationals
• Reduction of personnel at the Pakistan High Commission

The Indian government's decision to put on hold the Indus Waters Treaty has been termed an "act of war" by Islamabad, and Islamabad also warned that it will exit the 1972 Simla Agreement sanctioning the present Line of Control.

Prime Minister Modi, in his address to the nation, disapproved of the Pahalgam killings in the harshest possible words and promised to hunt down and prosecute the perpetrators. “The time has come to uproot the last bastions of terrorism. The collective willpower of 140 crore Indians will now shatter the backbone of the culprits,” he said. He further stated that India would hunt down the terrorists "to the ends of the earth" and provide justice to the victims.