October 10, 2001	Wednesday	Rajab 22, 1422

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WASHINGTON, Oct 9: US Secretary of State Colin Powell leaves Washington for Islamabad at the weekend as part of a short trip to Pakistan and India designed to address worries about how the Afghanistan crisis can impinge on the always uneasy Indo-Pakistan relationship.

Officially, the State Department has said only that Secretary Powell will meet officials in both Pakistan and India, talk about America’s bilateral relations with each of the two countries, and discuss the current situation in Afghanistan.

But, reflecting America’s anxiety about the basic distrust between the two South Asian nuclear neighbours influencing the campaign against terrorism, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said at his regular briefing on Tuesday afternoon that the US certainly had an interest in seeing that the Afghanistan crisis did not become a subject of dispute between India and Pakistan. He said the US was so far “very pleased” with the cooperation that it was getting from both Pakistan and India.

Washington has also made it a point to welcome Monday’s telephonic conversation between Gen Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

A senior State Department official told Dawn on Tuesday the US welcomed reports of the telephone call and welcomed efforts to look at the root causes of tension between India and Pakistan and the resolve to address areas of dispute as well as to explore areas of cooperation.

Pakistan is in the thick of the Afghanistan crisis and India has also backed the US-led drive against Al-Qaeda and terrorism, but New Delhi’s efforts to also draw attention to what it describes as cross-border terrorism in Kashmir appear to have created anxieties in Pakistan about India’s intentions.

The United States is keen to avoid having its attention distracted from its preoccupation with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and one purpose of Secretary Powell’s visit would be to urge restraint and caution on the two countries. He would hope that personal diplomacy by him would help somewhat to clear the air in South Asia.

When Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh was in Washington a few days ago, the issue of Kashmir and “cross-border terrorism” was raised in discussions with Secretary Powell, and the latter had indicated in remarks to reporters that terrorism of all kinds would have to be addressed.

The official US characterization of the current US campaign is that it is a coalition of terrorism with a global reach. India has been demanding that the Pakistan-based Jaish-i-Mohammad, which is blamed by New Delhi for carrying out operations inside Kashmir, should also be declared a terrorist organization by the US. Mr Boucher said on Tuesday the US was keeping a very close watch on the group and was concerned at its violent activities.

Looking beyond the immediate crisis, Secretary Powell might be inclined to discuss ways on how Pakistan and India can be persuaded to come closer to a settlement of the Kashmir issue once the Afghanistan situation settles down. This particular question was also said to have been touched upon in talks held by British Prime Minister Tony Blair during his recent visit to Islamabad and New Delhi.

Mr Boucher said any effort at mediation between Islamabad and New Delhi was not what Mr Powell’s trip was about, but did stress that it was important to work with both and help them in whatever they could do to reduce tensions in the region.

The Powell trip would also serve to answer questions raised in some quarters in Pakistan by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s visit to some Middle

Eastern and Central Asian countries undertaken just before the strikes on Afghanistan began. Pakistan’s exclusion from Mr Rumsfeld’s itinerary was noticed by Pakistanis, but a visit by him to Islamabad on the eve of the strikes would have been counter-productive and in fact could have recoiled on the Musharraf regime, whose critics would have found further ammunition for their charges of complicity with the US. Mr Powell might be able to bring a broader political vision to bear on Indo-Pakistan issues.