17 July 2004	Saturday	28 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

WASHINGTON: Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's letters to Pakistan, India and Bangladesh reflect a new approach for seeking troops: instead of routing the request through Washington, Baghdad should directly approach the prospective contributors.

All three countries are major contributors of troops to UN peacekeeping missions around the world, and the United States has also been quietly urging each of them to send troops to Iraq.

But each of them has a different position on this issue. The new Indian government, which took charge in May, has maintained the stance taken by its predecessors: India will not send troops to Iraq, at least not yet.

Bangladesh will wait for the other two to take a decision and if either India or Pakistan decides to send their troops, it will help the Bangladeshis to overcome their reluctance too.

If both Pakistan and Bangladesh agree to contribute troops, it will be easier for India to do so as well. The Indian rulers then can argue that if South Asia's two Muslim nations - Pakistan and Bangladesh - have no objection to sending troops to a fellow Muslim country, Iraq, why should India be left behind.

Seen in this context, Mr Allawi's letter to President Pervez Musharraf has an additional significance. In the past, Pakistani officials have publicly said that they will send troops to Iraq, provided such a force is mandated by the UN Security Council and is requested by an Iraqi government.

A Security Council resolution, adopted last month, already calls for the formation of a 4,000-strong international force for Iraq, and Pakistan was among the nations the world body directly requested to contribute troops.

Earlier this week, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed a senior Pakistani diplomat his personal representative to Iraq, providing Pakistan with another justification for sending troops.

With Mr Allawi's letter, Pakistan's second condition, a request from Iraq, has also been met. And as US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who was in Islamabad on Thursday for talks on Iraq and other issues, has said that it's now up to the government of Pakistan to make a decision.

In fact, it was Mr Armitage who told reporters that "there has been a communication from Prime Minister Allawi to the government of Pakistan, and I'm sure they're considering it."

In his interviews to Pakistani and international television channels, Mr Armitage also made it clear that Pakistan's participation in the peace mission in Iraq would "not so much be helping the United States, it's helping the people of Iraq."

He then quickly added that the troops were required to "for the protection of the UN as we move toward elections in December." His statement addresses all three messages Islamabad wants to convey to its citizens: Pakistani troops, if sent, will not be protecting US forces in Iraq; the troops will be protecting the UN mission, now headed by a Pakistani; and the deployment will also help the process of normalization in Iraq by creating an environment for holding elections in December.

Mr Armitage also dispelled the impression that the United States was putting pressure on Pakistan to send troops. Rejecting media reports that he had come to ask for troops, Mr Armitage said: "No, I didn't ask for any troops. You asked me what the government of Pakistan could do, and I listed a sort of an increasing order of things that the government of Pakistan could possibly do."

But he did acknowledge discussing Iraq both in India and Pakistan. He said in his talks in Islamabad and New Delhi, he shared the US "view of the situation in Iraq to include the popularity of the interim Iraqi government, to include the full turnover of sovereignty."

"And I made no request of either state, but I pointed out just where I thought we were in Iraq and where the coalition was," he said.