New Delhi: US president Donald Trump has reacted to the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, saying that the fight between India and Pakistan has been going on for a thousand years, and also claiming that he is close to both India and Pakistan.India and Pakistan were formed 77 years ago.Aboard Air Force One on the way to Rome, Trump was asked by a reporter on tensions between India and Pakistan. He said that he is close to both India and Pakistan.“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),” Trump said, according to the audio file released by the White House.In 2019, during his first stint as president, Trump had expressed interest to mediate between India and Pakistan. As The Wire had reported then, he had repeatedly expressed desire to “do the best I can to mediate or do something” over the “explosive situation” between India and Pakistan in Kashmir where “you have millions of people that want to be ruled by others”.“Kashmir is a very complicated place. You have Hindus and you have the Muslims and I wouldn’t say they get along so great,” Trump had said then.The April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam – by an offshoot of the Lashar-e-Tayyaba – has resulted in heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, with India vowing to keep the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance and Pakistan saying this will be taken as an act of war. Both countries have cancelled existing visas to citizens of the other, barring a few exceptions.Trump’s claim that he is “very close” to Pakistan might not come as great news for India.In his first address to Congress after beginning his second term, Trump had singled out Pakistan for its role in the capture and extradition of an Islamic State militant linked to the killing of 13 US soldiers during the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. In other parts the speech, he largely railed against other countries, including India, for imposing ‘high tariffs’.Trump’s gesture had offered relief to Islamabad, which had been worried that lobbying efforts by overseas supporters of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf to pressure the Pakistani government into releasing jailed leader Imran Khan could strain bilateral ties.