|
India to Warn Powell Against Pakistan in Anti-Terror Coalition
NEW DELHI, Oct 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - India will stress its opposition to Pakistan's inclusion in the global anti-terrorism coalition when U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell visits South Asia, officials said Wednesday.
New Delhi will also play down the possibility of a conflict between the nuclear-armed rivals and dismiss such fears as anti-India propaganda waged by Islamabad, they said.
Powell's expected visit - the dates of which have yet to be confirmed - is tacit recognition that Washington must walk a diplomatic tightrope in keeping both Islamabad and New Delhi on track.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has already made a point of visiting both capitals in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks in the U.S., which led this week to U.S.-British strikes on Pakistan's neighbor Afghanistan.
"We are going to tell Powell what we told Tony Blair that the U.S. has made the problem a part of its solution [by including Pakistan in the coalition], which we will not accept as long as Pakistan supports cross-border terrorism in Kashmir," a senior Indian foreign ministry official told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training combatants in the disputed Himalayan state of Kashmir. Islamabad denies the accusations but extends moral and diplomatic backing to what it calls a legitimate struggle for self-rule. Kashmir has been a source of conflict for the two countries as both claim the region.
Blair's weekend trip to New Delhi and Islamabad did little to advance India's demands that the Kashmir insurgency also be tackled by the U.S.-led alliance, although the British leader promised to "strengthen the coalition in all its forms".
The Indian official also tried to allay any fears in Washington that the U.S.'s battle against terrorism could be derailed by another India-Pakistan conflict.
"In terms of soothing ruffled feelings, we can only say that India is indeed a mature state and that we can sort out our own problems," he said, a day after India said the two South Asian neighbors were taking steps to ease bilateral tensions.
More than 35,000 people have died in the past 12 years in Kashmir, which has been the subject of two of the three wars fought by India and Pakistan since their independence from Britain in 1947.
On Wednesday, scores of activists belonging to a right-wing party allied with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's ruling BJP party staged a noisy protest demanding a U.S. attack on "terrorist camps" in Pakistan. Police broke up the gathering with tear gas.
Uday Bhaskar, deputy director of the Indian government-funded Institute of Defense Studies and Analysis, said the U.S. had nothing to fear from India in the current crisis.
"We discount the possibilities that India would use this opportunity to attack Pakistan," said Bhaskar, a senior naval commander.
"India knows that war with Pakistan is not the answer, but Islamabad is crying wolf to gain global attention."
Bhaskar urged the United States to broaden its focus to the alleged Pakistani backing of "cross-border terrorism" in Kashmir.
He also argued that if Islamabad is serious about its anti-terrorism pledges, it should act on Indian claims of evidence of financial transactions between elements in Pakistan and the attackers of the World Trade Center in New York.
"Why is not Pakistan taking steps when bank accounts have been revealed by us? That is the focus India would like to bring to Powell's attention," Bhaskar said.
|
