WASHINGTON: Pakistan is America’s highest foreign policy priority and the Obama administration is willing to provide whatever security and economic assistance it needs, says Robert Blake, the new US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian affairs.

In an interview to Dawn newspaper and TV, Mr Blake, who looks after US relations with both India and Pakistan, also emphasised India’s importance in the administration’s new policy for the region, noting that New Delhi was ‘playing a very important role’ in Afghanistan.

Mr Blake made it obvious that the US strongly backed the Indian demand for punishing the Mumbai terror suspects.

Pakistan, he said, would have to punish the suspects and stop cross-border terrorist attacks if it wanted the resumption of bilateral talks with India.

Mr Blake also said he believed India and Pakistan were not ready to discuss the Kashmir issue now when they were busy fighting extremists.

‘The first part of that sequencing (resumption of India-Pakistan dialogue) will be for Pakistan to take action against these five Mumbai suspects, to prosecute them,’ said Mr Blake.

‘And then for the two sides to agree on the ways that India can be sure and Pakistan can be sure that Pakistan’s territory is not being used by these militants group to threaten India, Afghanistan or the US.’

No mediation

In his first interaction with the Pakistani media, America’s new pointsman for South Asia made it clear that the United States was not willing to play a mediatory role between India and Pakistan although it had good ties with both.

Instead, he encouraged Pakistan to resolve its differences with New Delhi through a bilateral dialogue process.

‘On the question of Kashmir, obviously that is something for the two countries to resolve,’ said the US diplomat when asked if Washington would use its influence to help resolve this dispute. ‘But right now the two countries are focussed principally on the issue of counter-terrorism.’

The priority for the two countries now was ‘bringing the five Mumbai suspects to justice and prosecuting those and taking steps to ensure that the territory of Pakistan is not used by militant groups to threaten either the US or India or any other country,’ he added.

‘Does it mean that Kashmir has been placed on the back-burner?’ he was asked.

‘That is for the two countries to decide. I think that’s a pretty sensitive issue and I imagine that they will not be prepared to take that up at this particular stage.’

Mr Blake said that the United States was working with Pakistan to address the energy crisis, which he described as the country’s ‘most important internal problem’. He said that President Barack Obama’s special envoy Richard Holbrooke discussed with the Pakistani leaders various options for helping Pakistan overcome the energy crisis during his recent visit to Islamabad.

Diplomatic sources in Washington say that Mr Holbrooke is going to Islamabad again later this week with a proposal on how the United States can help resolve the energy crisis.

Nuclear energy

Mr Blake, however, showed little interest in providing nuclear energy to Pakistan, saying that it was a ‘very expensive’ option.

He not only rejected the possibility of offering a similar nuclear agreement to Pakistan as Washington has signed with India but also said that Pakistan could not sign a bilateral nuclear agreement with other countries either.

Mr Blake said that if confirmed, Baitullah Mehsud’s death would be a major step forward because he was ‘one of the most dangerous and odious terrorists in Pakistan’.

The US official said that the actions Pakistan was now taking against the terrorists also enjoyed the support of the Pakistani people.

‘We hope that that support will provide the basis for continued action against such militants,’ he added.

Asked if Baitullah’s death would help improve America’s image in Pakistan, Mr Blake said the US was committed to helping Pakistan, not just on security problems but also on economic, such as the IMF programme and other issues.

He refrained from describing Pakistan as ‘the most dangerous place on earth’, as the US media calls it, but acknowledged that country faced a number of challenges.

‘But the president (Obama) has repeatedly said and Senator John Kerry has also said in Congress that we are committed on a long-term basis to supporting Pakistan, to supporting the development of institutions and to supporting the people of Pakistan.’

Mr Blake agreed with the suggestion that if tensions between India and Pakistan escalated, they could lead to a nuclear conflict.

‘But both sides also are aware of that risk and I think that is one of the reasons that both sides began to talk to each other, beginning in 2004,’ he added.

‘They realised that diplomacy was the best way forward. And that the acquisition of nuclear weapons had raised the stakes. Therefore, it was better to pursue diplomacy and indeed both made great progress on the composite dialogue and the back channel from 2004 onwards.’

The assistant secretary said that like its predecessor, the Obama administration also believed that its relations with Pakistan were different from its ties to India.

‘We see them as different challenges and different opportunities but both are very, very important to the US. I don’t want to try to say that one is more important than the other,’ he said.

The United States, he said, had been working extremely hard with both Afghanistan and Pakistan and the US president had made it clear that ‘this is his highest foreign policy priority’.

‘But at the same time, I think the message from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent visit to India was that we are also going to place a great deal of importance on our relationship with India. That is not going to take a back seat to what we are trying to do in Afghanistan and Pakistan.’

Mr Blake conceded that despite the US desire to de-hyphenate its relations with Pakistan to those with India, there were a number of inter-connections between the two countries.

Mr Blake said during her recent visit to India, Secretary Clinton did not sign an agreement for selling conventional weapons to that country.

What she discussed was ‘the narrow issue’ of end use monitoring, which is a kind of agreement that the US already has with more than 80 countries around the world.

‘We achieved agreement basically on the language that would go into letters of offer and letters of acceptance for potential future sales. But such sales were not discussed,’ he said.

‘And I don’t want to imply that that was some significant part of the visit.’

He added: ‘We also, in Pakistan’s case, we want to put a particular priority now on bolstering the counter-insurgency capabilities of the Pakistani forces.’

The US, he said, was providing ‘a whole range’ different equipment and training and new tactics to Pakistan.

‘How would the US react if Pakistan signed a nuclear agreement with China, like the one India signed with the US?’

‘It is not simply a bilateral agreement, this kind of agreement must go through the nuclear suppliers’ group, so there has got to be a multilateral understanding,’ he said.

‘Similarly, any kind of agreement between Pakistan and another country would have to be subject to review by the IAEA, by the nuclear suppliers’ group and others. So this is not simply a bilateral agreement.’

‘Will the US be willing to help Pakistan produce nuclear energy?’

‘Again, that is something that has to be discussed. Nuclear power … you have to find investment and people who are going to put money into it. Otherwise it is an extremely expensive alternative for providing energy,’ said Mr Blake.

‘What is needed now is really a good discussion on how to meet the immediate electricity needs of Pakistan. This is probably the most important internal problem on the economic side that Pakistan faces.’

‘Is the US quietly encouraging India and Pakistan to resume the bilateral dialogue process?’

‘Again, this is really between the two countries to take forward and I must say I think they have done a good job. There have already been extensive contacts at the foreign secretaries’ level, at the foreign ministers’ level and the two prime ministers as well.’

‘No US support?’

‘No. I mean we support them but these were arranged by the two countries themselves.’

Balochistan issue

‘Pakistan says India is using Afghanistan to stir troubles in Balochistan. What do you say?’

‘We welcome what India is doing in Afghanistan. India is playing a very important role in terms of providing development assistance, building roads and infrastructure and many other things. And Ambassador Holbrooke has addressed the issues of Balochistan and so forth and again that really is something that should be discussed between the two countries.’

‘Has the US seen evidence of India’s involvement?’

‘I don’t want to really get into the details of that. Let me just leave it at what I said. This is really something for the two countries to talk about themselves and try to resolve.’

‘Prime Minister Singh has denied that there’s any kind of involvement in Balochistan. And if Pakistan believes that there’s such involvement, then he has encouraged them to provide that information.’

‘Why do you say that India wants to help strengthen Pakistan?’

‘India understands that it is not in its interest to try to destabilise or undermine Pakistan’s security at this very sensitive time.’