WASHINGTON, June 11: President George Bush on Tuesday welcomed the de-escalatory steps taken by India and Pakistan in the past few days.
Talking to reporters, Mr Bush said he was very pleased with the progress being made in reducing tensions between the two countries. However, he pointed out that while things were getting better, friction remained, and troops were still massed on the borders, a situation in which there was always a threat that something could happen.
Mr Bush’s remarks reflect the general sense here of guarded satisfaction on the Indian response to Pakistan’s assurances with regard to cross-border incursions. The Indians have re-opened their airspace to Pakistani civilian flights, reportedly ordered naval ships back from forward locations, and named a new high commissioner for Islamabad.
These developments follow the visit to the region last week by US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and precede Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s trip to New Delhi and Islamabad.
Beyond the expressions of satisfaction, there is also realization of the need for international involvement with the Kashmir issue. In an interview with BBC television on Monday night, Mr Armitage said while the Simla Agreement of 1972 made it clear that Kashmir was a bilateral issue to be resolved between the two states concerned, “I think the spectre of nuclear war which seems to have lessened in recent days has been so frightening and so riveting that the question of Kashmir is much higher on the international agenda than it had been heretofore”.
Mr Armitage was careful in stressing that a situation where a million men were glaring at each other across a disputed territory should not be taken lightly and that a “bit of a dance” was going on, but said “right now tensions are down, so things are going, I think, better than we could have hoped”.
He said the US was “satisfied that President Musharraf is a man of his word. We’re satisfied that infiltrations are down, and I note with satisfaction that India has publicly said the same thing. And I think that President Musharraf and his colleagues are intent on doing what he has said, and that is to stop permanently the cross-LoC infiltrations”.
The deputy secretary denied that any specific plan or a roadmap, per se, had been worked out between Pakistan and India, but hoped that the two countries would remain engaged with the international community on continuing the de-escalatory trend. He was clear that the situation in South Asia required persisting international vigilance.
According to Mr Armitage, who had first visited Pakistan and then gone on to India, Defence Secretary Rumsfeld would have discussions first with Indian leaders and “get their views and carry them across to President Musharraf, who will have just returned from the UAE and from Saudi Arabia. And I suspect there will be other diplomatic visits in the weeks and months ahead”.
In a separate interview on public television, Mr Armitage said both Britain and the US found that cross-border infiltrations were down, and that Indian intelligence agreed with this assessment.
Q: Tell us a little bit about your meeting with President Musharraf. The reports are that you talked very bluntly with him, that you had an intelligence dossier showing army and Pakistani intelligence support for the militants in Kashmir, that you even said that if this didn’t stop, the US might have to move its bases from Pakistan to India. Are those reports correct?
ARMITAGE: Well, I don’t know where you got those reports. I didn’t carry any dossiers at all. I had a very straightforward and frank discussion with President Musharraf, who is a man of great dignity and honour, and very straightforward. But we didn’t have to waste much time with small talk. We got right into the hopes and aspirations of the people of Pakistan, as well as the problems, and most particularly the possibility of Al Qaeda using the Kashmir situation to actually bring about a war between Pakistan and India, and the absolute need to avoid this.
The deputy secretary added that the US valued the assurances that President Musharraf gave to the US government, “in effect to the President of the United States. We think he will exert every effort to stop the infiltration. I think even the most ardent nationalists on the Indian side would say that President Musharraf cannot stop everything, but that he needs to be seen as exerting every effort in his capacity. And I think we’ll see that”.
Mr Armitage confirmed that proposals on monitoring of the Line of Control were discussed with Pakistan and India during his visit, referred to the differences on this issue between the two countries, and suspected that things would clarify over time, but said there was no resolution to the issue yet.
Mr Armitage’s attention was drawn to Monday’s revelations about a “dirty bomb” plot when the alleged plotter was said to have been arrested following his return from Pakistan, and the US official was asked whether Pakistan was still a “hotbed of international terrorist activity”. Mr Armitage said: “I think the way you put it, that Pakistan is a hotbed of international terrorist activity, is not the way I would describe it. Certainly, Pakistan has Jihadi elements in its society, and certainly they’ve been a neighbour to Afghanistan, and a lot of that trouble has crossed the border. But I would note that Pakistan has been very helpful on a number of occasions, and has arrested many bad elements. I fully expect that that cooperation will continue, and I fully expect that Secretary Rumsfeld and President Musharraf will talk about further cooperation from Pakistan in the future.”
AFP ADDS: “We’ve made progress in defusing a very tense situation. I want to thank all the countries which have been sending representatives to India and Pakistan to try to persuade both leaders that war would be a disaster,” said Bush. “I’m pleased with the progress we’ve made and we’ll continue to work the issue.—AFP
