The Hindu : India to ask U.S. to counsel Pak.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 07, 2002

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India to ask U.S. to counsel Pak.

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI Sept. 6. India will ask the United States to counsel Islamabad to cooperate with New Delhi on the issue of cross-border terrorism, official sources said ahead of the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's visit to the United Nations.

They said that as of now there was "no modicum" of cooperation between Indian and Pakistani agencies as far as cross-border terrorism was concerned. They agreed with the recent American contention that not all "jehadi elements" were coming from across the Line of Control (LoC).

According to the sources, India is not about to place American sensors on the LoC to deal with infiltration from Pakistan-held territory. They said that a "pilot project" would be launched to test the sensors and this deployment will not be on the LoC. The sensors would be tested in riverine, mountainous and jungle terrain.

Apart from meeting the U.S. President, George Bush, on Septemer 12 and addressing the United Nations General Assembly the next day, Mr. Vajpayee, who is leaving for New York via Frankfurt on Monday morning, will also hold bilateral meetings with the leaders of Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Denmark, Nigeria, Zambia, South Africa, Japan, Mauritius and Bulgaria.

The External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, will visit Washington a little earlier and a series of meetings with top U.S. officials have been lined up for him.

Referring to the agenda at the U.N., the sources said that international terrorism continued to be a priority issue and world leaders would include it in their speeches. The situation in West Asia and Afghanistan was also expected to be focussed upon.

A debate on Iraq and the related issue of commitment to the U.N. and multi-lateralism was also expected. The question of multi-lateralism versus unilateralism in the conduct of world affairs was itself an issue.

On its part, India would stress the need for a comprehensive, sustained approach on terrorism. It would be underlined that the need to fight terrorism could not be restricted just to tackling the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban; the problem needed to be dealt with in a comprehensive fashion. Here, India would also focus on those who provided support and a safe haven to terrorist elements.

The sources said that India's focus on the restructuring and reform of the U.N. remained. The U.N. had grown from 50 members in 1945 to 191 this year, but the strength of the Security Council had remained frozen at 15 — five permanent members and 10 temporary. To reflect the new realities, the Security Council needed to be expanded both in the permanent and non-permanent categories. More debate was expected on the linkages between weapons of mass destruction and terrorist elements.

On Afghanistan, a meeting has been convened by the U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, where apart from the traditional "six plus two" (Afghanistan's immediate neighbours and Russia and China), India, Germany and Japan have been invited. No formal designation has been given to the meeting.

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