The Hindu : What India wants from U.S.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 17, 2002

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What India wants from U.S.

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI July 16. The Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, has laid down clearly what India wants from the United States as far as Pakistan and terrorism are concerned.

As the U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, prepares to visit India and Pakistan, Mr. Advani has defined what New Delhi will tell the top American official dealing with foreign policy matters.

The British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, who arrives in New Delhi three days from now, in all likelihood, will receive a similar kind of message from his Indian interlocutors.

Replying to the adjournment motion in the Lok Sabha this evening, Mr. Advani made it plain that India wanted the U.S. to be tough with Pakistan — he resurrected an old Indian demand that Pakistan be declared a terrorist State if it failed to stop cross-border terrorism.

And, almost in the same breath, the Deputy Prime Minister added that he understood every country functioned according to its own national interests and that India would have to fight its own battles.

Mr. Advani, who spoke on the entire gamut of Pakistan-related foreign policy issues, was no doubt aware that Washington has its own interests in Pakistan and its role in tackling the Al-Qaeda menace.

But he spelt out India's policy to continue to mount pressure on the U.S. to take stronger diplomatic action against Islamabad in a bid not to just stop infiltration, but also take on what is now popularly called the "infrastructure of terrorism''.

Interestingly, the Deputy Prime Minister did not directly blame Pakistan for the Rajiv Nagar massacre in Jammu on Saturday. That, possibly, may be an Indian concession to the high-profile foreign visitors who will be in New Delhi shortly.

While Pakistan was not directly blamed for Saturday's massacre, Mr. Advani left no one in doubt that the focus of India's concerns in Kashmir centred around Pakistan.

Mr. Advani's expectations from the U.S. may well complicate the equation for Washington in South Asia as Pakistan expects a "dialogue'' with India to resume in return for turning the terrorist tap off in Kashmir.

Just yesterday, the U.S. State Department spokesman made it clear that there had been a "significant decline in the infiltration'' along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu & Kashmir.

While the U.S. wants the Pakistani President, Pervez Musharraf, to continue action against terrorist groups inside Pakistan, the spokesman said it wanted a "continuation of steps on the Indian side to ease off and deescalate the situation''.

Clearly, there is a clash between what Mr. Advani wants the U.S. to do and what Washington would like India to do in the current scenario in South Asia.

As far as Pakistan is concerned, the Deputy Prime Minister's comments that Jammu & Kashmir is not a dispute with Pakistan and that it was an integral part of India will definitely elicit negative comment from Pakistan, given its traditional stand on Kashmir.

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