The United States has no official interest in Kashmir and preferred the issue to be settled by India and Pakistan, which realise that it was a 'stupid conflict,' a noted American strategic analyst has said.

"There is no official American interest in Kashmir whatsoever. The Chinese have adopted the same language as Americans. You see Chinese actually control part of Kashmir. The US government policy is that there are two (India-Pakistan) friends. They have a dispute. We urge them to settle the dispute. End of story," Stephen Cohen, currently touring Pakistan, said in an interview to The Nation.

He said there was 'realisation' in both the countries that it was a 'stupid conflict'.

"There is no American initiative. I came to South Asia in 1964. Things have not changed very much. You hear the same rhetoric in India and in Pakistan. But underneath that there is realisation in both countries that it is a stupid conflict," he said.

Cohen, author of the book The Idea of Pakistan said President Pervez Musharraf spoke to him about 'imaginative ideas' to resolve Kashmir soon after his military coup in 1999.

"The US is so exhausted and preoccupied by Iraq that it does not have time for Kashmir. Both India and Pakistan should not wait for US to help settle the issue. Iraq is probably the gravest foreign policy mistake we have made in decades. It is worse than Vietnam," he said.