Top-level political delegations from Pakistan and India, rival South Asian nations, are in the US capital this week, each seeking the world's ear — and America's favour.
In a rare diplomatic spectacle, two high-level all-party teams from Islamabad and New Delhi have descended on Washington, DC at the same time, pushing sharply divergent narratives in the aftermath of a deadly spiral in Kashmir.
Their common goal: to win over the US. Their routes, however, are anything but common.
At stake is far more than soft power. It's narrative dominance in a moment that could shape the global understanding of one of the world's most volatile geopolitical fault lines.
On April 22, gunmen in India-administered Kashmir killed 26 Indian visitors at a popular tourist site.
India, which has deployed more than 500,000 troops in the tiny but disputed Himalayan region, claimed the attack had "cross-border" links to Pakistan, without publicly producing any evidence to support its claim.
Pakistan denied any connection to the attack. Islamabad quickly declared it a "false flag" operation and called for a neutral investigation.
A shadowy group called The Resistance Front purportedly claimed responsibility, according to an unverified claim quoted by some Indian media outlets. Later, the group withdrew its claims as per media reports.
But what followed was “Operation Sindoor” — a series of Indian military strikes on what New Delhi claimed as "terror infrastructure" in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Islamabad reported dozens of civilian deaths from Indian strikes and readied retaliatory measures.
The Pakistani response, largely limited to drone and missile raids on Indian military sites between May 8–10, culminated in India losing an unspecified number of fighter jets and an uneasy ceasefire brokered by the US.
Now, as the guns have fallen silent, the battle has moved to the diplomatic arena. And there, both India and Pakistan have placed their bets on world capitals including Washington, DC.
Why Washington?
In an increasingly multipolar world, Washington holds significant importance. The US has often played a key role in de-escalating crises during India-Pakistan conflicts.
Both Delhi and Islamabad know this. And in the first week of June, they have arrived with all-party delegations and talking points in tow.
India's is led by Shashi Tharoor, a former UN diplomat and current parliamentarian.
The Pakistani side is headed by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, foreign minister-turned-opposition leader with a storied surname and strategic intent.
The mission is clear: define their position.
Tharoor's nine-member delegation — which includes MPs across party lines and Ambassador Taranjit Singh Sandhu — is touring Washington's elite: think tanks, congressional committees, senior officials, and diaspora influencers.
India's pitch is grounded in "zero tolerance" against what it says is "cross-border terrorism". Operation Sindoor, New Delhi insists, was a calibrated response — and not an act of war.
India seeks to portray a "new normal" in which swift, surgical retaliation does not invite escalation but establishes deterrence. And it wants America to stop hyphenating India and Pakistan in conflict narratives.
The problem? That is exactly what is happening.
Pakistan's message: Restraint and readiness
Across town, Bhutto leads Pakistan's counter-delegation with an entirely different vocabulary.
Islamabad is highlighting "Indian aggression" and its dispute with New Delhi over Kashmir since 1947. It says Kashmir is a source of all tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals.
"Pakistan only ever acted in self-defence, we never initiated any violence against India," Bilawal said in a press conference at the UN on Tuesday.
Where India calls for isolation, Pakistan pleads for engagement. And while India asserts strategic decisiveness, Pakistan insists it exercised restraint — halting its limited retaliation to prevent a regional flare-up.
The Pakistani side has already met Ambassador Dorothy Shea, the US Permanent Representative to the UN. Meetings with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and envoys of Security Council nations are also on the books.
Bhutto and his team already gave a presentation to members of the OIC in New York on Monday.
Their agenda includes Kashmir and more. Pakistan is raising the issue of "water terrorism". It says India is weaponising river flows under the Indus Waters Treaty — and challenging what it calls Indian propaganda in Western capitals.
A diplomatic face-off
The optics are striking. Two rival delegations in the same city, at the same time, fighting parallel wars of perception. It is not a summit. It is a standoff.
Bhutto, for his part, makes a forcible pitch for Pakistan's role as a responsible regional power forced to defend itself, but doing so within the bounds of diplomacy and international law.
Neither side has had time for regional forums like SAARC or other neutral platforms in Asia. Beijing is too close to Islamabad, and India's regional footing remains uneasy.
Only Washington, they calculate, can move the needle.
US considers India to be an actor in the QUAD, a major trade player, and a counterweight to China.
Pakistan, too, is entangled in American priorities — from "global counterterrorism cooperation" to Afghanistan’s stability.
Despite India's post-Sindoor lobbying blitz across 33 world capitals, including in the EU, the response from Washington has been mostly tepid.
Analysts say both nations remain "hyphenated" in US strategic calculations and are treated as co-contenders rather than one victim and one aggressor.
That's the perception India is trying to break. That's the framing Pakistan is trying to preserve.
And while India seeks to cast the episode as a strategic one-upmanship, it is Islamabad that appears to have shaped the ceasefire optics — with President Trump almost 10 times claiming he brokered truce and stopped a nuclear war, to Delhi's quiet dismay, and a world not entirely convinced by India's victory claims.
Trump has even expressed his willingness to mediate the long-standing Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, suggesting that a resolution may be possible to settle what he called "a thousand years" of dispute.
As both delegations crisscross DC, one message rings clear: South Asia's fiercest rivalry has come to the echo chambers of global diplomacy and international spotlight.
Both India and Pakistan seek America's ear — and by extension, its imprimatur.
For now, Washington is listening.
