WASHINGTON: The United States “has concluded that the future aid to India and Pakistan must be related rather directly to progress towards securing peace between them, since without peace economic development is not possible and without economic development stability is uncertain”.

This official statement with regard to the resumption of aid to India and Pakistan has been repeatedly asserted by top Administration officials in private and in public in recent months.

Some Congressional hearings provide clues as to what the United States means by “progress towards securing peace”.

As far as this correspondent can gather from published testimonies of Congressional hearings, however heavily censored, as well as from informed sources here, what the Administration has in mind is that India and Pakistan should not resume hostilities, rather than come to a settlement, or even move constructively toward one on the Kashmir dispute.

The US, it seems, would like to see the status quo maintained on the issue.

Secondly, as one top US official said the US aid to India and Pakistan would be designed to strengthen anti-Chinese front in the sub-continent.

During a recent hearing on the Foreign Aid Bill before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Assistant Secretary of State, Raymond Hare, successor to Mr Phillips Talbot who left Pakistan-American relations in debris, was closely questioned on US policy with regard to maintaining peace on the sub-continent.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2016