The Hindu : Front Page : Pakistan says no to U.S. role in ties with India

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Monday, Apr 21, 2008
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Pakistan says no to U.S. role in ties with India

Special Correspondent

Things are falling into place, so please be patient: envoy

“Let Pakistan and India conduct relations bilaterally”
General Karamat echoes views of Shahid Malik

New Delhi: Rejecting the suggestion that the United States had any role to play in addressing Indian concerns about Pakistan, Pakistani High Commissioner Shahid Malik said here on Sunday that Islamabad and New Delhi should be allowed to conduct their relations bilaterally.

He was responding to remarks made by the former U.S. Ambassador to India, Robert D. Blackwill, at the IISS-Citi India Global Forum that since Pakistan’s future was “so highly uncertain,” the U.S. and Indian governments needed to “talk in a very private way about that subject.”

Mr. Malik said the recent elections in Pakistan had been extremely fair and transparent and there was no reason for anyone to jump to “hasty conclusions” about the future of his country. “Things are falling into place, so please be patient with us,” he said.

“On Pakistan-India relations, my advice is to let both Pakistan and India conduct our relations bilaterally. We are quite capable of doing so. The dialogue process is proceeding well and is on track. Next month, the [Indian] Foreign Minister will be travelling to Pakistan to carry the process forward.”

“Bullish remarks”

The Ambassador’s bullish remarks on the India-Pakistan peace process were echoed by General (Retd.) Jehangir Karamat, former chief of the Pakistan Army and former Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S. “The India-Pakistan dialogue,” he said, “is far more important than any dialogue with Washington.”

In response, Mr. Blackwill said he had been misunderstood and that he was not proposing the U.S. “get between Pakistan and India.” Describing the bilateral relationship between Islamabad and New Delhi as “one of the few bright lights in the gloomy if not grim international period in the past several years,” he said he did not think America had a role to play in trying to manage that relationship.

“But given the stakes both the U.S. and India have in the future of Pakistan, they ought to talk about it. And I do not have the slightest hesitation in Pakistan talking to the Americans about India.”

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