Geopolitics

[Arun_S]

[url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Pentagon-for-pressure-on-India-to-ease-tension-with-Pakistan-WSJ/articleshow/5762217.cms"]Pentagon for pressure on India to ease tension with Pakistan: WSJ[/url]

IANS, Apr 5, 2010, 11.39am IST



Daily Pioneer has this:

Tuesday, April 6, 2010





[url="http://www.dailypioneer.com/247287/US-wants-troop-cut-in-Kashmir-to-win-Afghan-war.html"]US wants troop cut in Kashmir to win Afghan war[/url]



S Rajagopalan | Washington



To get Pak on its side, Washington mulls exerting pressure on India to reduce operations in Kabul



Reducing the number of Indian troops in Kashmir or pulling back forces along the border is among the “ideas” being discussed by the Pentagon in internal debates as part of measures to ensure that US efforts to win Pakistani cooperation for its Afghanistan operations do not suffer. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the Pentagon push for “more pressure” on New Delhi comes in the wake of President Barack Obama issuing a “secret directive” to his top officials to work hard for an Indo-Pak détente.



Citing people familiar with the contents of the directive, reportedly issued by Obama in December, the influential daily went on to say that its conclusion was that “India must make resolving its tensions with Pakistan a priority for progress to be made on US goals in the region”.



While the White House has declined to comment on the directive or on the debate within the administration over its India policy, the paper said the directive was “summarised in a memo written by National Security Adviser James Jones at the end of the White House’s three-month review of Afghan war policy in December”.



It is the Pentagon which is reportedly going all-out to call the shots in favour of Pakistan by making the case for increased pressure on New Delhi, while the State Department is resisting such moves, saying they could backfire.



“According to the US and Indian officials, the Pentagon has emerged in internal Obama Administration debates as an active lobbyist for more pressure on India, with some officials already informally pressing Indian officials to take Pakistan’s concerns more seriously,” the Journal reported.



It went on to cite a US military official as saying that Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the US Government’s prime interlocutor with the powerful Pakistani Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani, was for “encouraging New Delhi to be more ‘transparent’ about its activities along the countries’ shared border and to cooperate more with Pakistan”.



Although the Obama Administration has reportedly made “few concrete demands of New Delhi” thus far, the report quoted US officials as saying that “the only specific request has been to discourage India from getting more involved in training the Afghan military, to ease Pakistani concerns about getting squeesed by India on two borders”.



This is being seen against the Pakistan’s concerted bid to more or less get India out of Afghanistan even as New Delhi has categorically ruled out any scaling down of its presence in that country.



On the sensitive issue of reduction of Indian troops in Kashmir, the Journal reported: “In interviews, US military officials were circumspect about what specific moves they would like to see from New Delhi. But according to people who have discussed India policy with Pentagon officials, the ideas discussed in internal debates include reducing the number of Indian troops in Kashmir or pulling back forces along the border.”



Some US officials are said to believe that Islamabad will remain reluctant to wholeheartedly fight the Islamic militants based on its Afghan border “unless the sense of threat from India is reduced”.



One foreign diplomat who has reportedly discussed India's role with the Pentagon officials was quoted as saying: “They say, ‘The Pakistanis have this perception and you have to deal with the perception’.”



The 56-page note presented by the Pakistani Government to the Obama Administration ahead of the recent high-level US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue here “contained a litany of accusations against the Indian Government, and suggestions the US intercede on Pakistan’s behalf”, according to a US official.



However, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior officials have in their recent public comments ruled out any US intervention on Indo-Pak matters, whether over Kashmir or the water issue that was sought to be raised by Islamabad prominently during the Washington meeting.



State Department officials have been credited with the view that moves to pressure India at Pakistan’s bidding could backfire. A senior official involved in Indo-Pak issues has been quoted as saying that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has risked his political standing domestically by suggesting India would decouple talks on issues such as trade and travel from demands that Pakistan act more aggressively against terrorist groups, particularly Lashkar-e-Tayyeba.



“Our principal interest has always been to encourage the talks to resume, but we also understand where the Indians are coming from, which is that there has to be some progress on these bilateral counterterrorism issues,” the official was quoted as saying.