ISLAMABAD: Differences over India’s enhanced role in Afghanistan led to the drift in strategic relations between Pakistan and the United States that caught public eye after prickly Foreign Minister Qureshi pointed towards a trust deficit between the two allies and asked the senior partner for a fair treatment based on mutual trust and respect.

Background interviews revealed that strains in the relations were much more serious than met the eye and as the insiders put it the testing moment for the strategic cooperation has arrived and critical decisions by both the allies are due now.

‘The ties are in a very delicate stage and there are very few options left for both the allies – either to concede some ground to the other or to enter an all out confrontation,’ a diplomatic source opined adding things may worsen in days ahead because the Americans are known to be bad listeners and have an inclination for ‘bulldozing’ the matters.

The differences started after President Obama unveiled his strategy for the region, which among other things envisioned the setting up of a Contact Group on Pakistan and Afghanistan which involved India. Subsequently, it became clearer with the passage of time that the Obama administration was looking towards a greater role for India in Afghanistan.

Ambassador Holbrooke articulated the US thinking by calling India the ‘absolutely critical leader of the region.’ The new US policy was a major shocker for Islamabad that had yet to recover from the surprise U-turn by President Obama, who had during his election campaign promised a resolution of the Kashmir issue, but later went back on his promise.

Suspicions in Pakistan compounded with the introduction of the Peace Act of 2009 in the US House of Representatives, that attached stringent conditionalities to the proposed $1.5 billion annual assistance, which required Islamabad not to support any person or group involved in activities meant to hurt India and to allow US investigators access to people suspected of involvement in nuclear proliferation.  

Pakistan believes that the conditionalities were out of sync with mutual desire for long term strategic relationship.

Foreign Office Spokesman Abdul Basit termed the proposed conditionalities as unhelpful.

Alongside all this there was a stepped up vilification campaign against Pakistan’s premier intelligence outfit – Inter Services Intelligence accusing it of supporting Taliban. There was a perception in Islamabad that the US was subscribing to India’s position on the security situation in South Asia.

Fears that US was planning to expand drone attacks, already a sensitive issue in Pakistan, into Balochistan did not help the cause. Some sources say the US and Pakistan had reached a broad understanding in principle on ending the drone attacks in Pakistan’s territory, but Islamabad was taken aback after finding no mention of it in the revised policy.

The change in terminology being used for Pakistan and particularly the choice of the Af-Pak phrase, clubbing Pakistan and Afghanistan together, manifested the US thinking, which considered Pakistan as part of the problem.

Basit says there is no comparison between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the two needed to be looked at separately for a tenable solution.

These developments were completely unacceptable to the military establishment in Pakistan, which then convinced the government to stand up to it although President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani were the first ones to have welcomed the new Obama strategy.

Islamabad was of the view that the shift in the US foreign policy towards Pakistan was demoralizing and promoted distrust.

‘The American tilt towards India despite knowing Pakistan’s concerns about it and having evidence of Indian role in promoting instability in different parts of Pakistan was not in good taste,’ a source said.

The matter was taken up in the meetings with US Special Envoy Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and Chairman US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen during their visit to Islamabad last week, where they were categorically asked about what they had done for curbing the Indian destabilizing role in Pakistan.

Admiral Mullen and Ambassador Holbrooke were further told that the shift of strategic focus from the Eastern borders to the Western borders was not possible until tensions with India were resolved and the core issue of Kashmir was addressed.

Analysts say the surprise reaction in Islamabad is being processed in Washington by their strategic planners for whom it was a revelation that things had gone awry. Pakistan has expressed the intentions to take up the issues again at the trilateral Pakistan-Afghanistan-US meeting in Washington on May 6-7.

However, it is expected that there could be a high level diplomatic or military contact between the two countries even ahead of the Washington meeting, to resolve the differences.

The seven US congressional delegations visiting Pakistan over the next three weeks for discussions on aid legislation could also talk about the thorny issues straining Pak-US ties.

Analysts believe that Pakistan would first have to put its own house in order before entering serious negotiations with the US. ‘They need to furnish acceptable proofs of Indian involvement in Pakistan; develop a credible counter-insurgency strategy; and more importantly get all of their state institutions on the same page.’