PERTH, May 30: The “war on terror” has complicated Washington’s ability to defuse tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi, the head of an international think-tank said here on Thursday.

Colonel Terence Taylor, executive director of the Washington arm of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), said the leaders of Pakistan and India would have to draw on their leadership skills and strategic vision to end their dispute over Kashmir.

He was speaking here after presenting a seminar about stability in a nuclearized South Asia.

US warnings about showing restraint were unlikely to carry as much weight with India as they might have done before Sept 11, he said.

Before then, US President George Bush had named India as America’s strategic partner in the region.

But since then, the “war against terror”, and America’s subsequent need to develop close ties with Pakistan, had weakened US influence with India — which now felt it could also fight “terrorism” outside its borders.

“I think the complication for the US is that it requires a closer relationship with Pakistan,” Colonel Taylor said while talking to reporters.

“This makes it a little difficult to deal with India,” he said.

Now was the time for President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to show outstanding leadership and strategic vision, he said.

“I don’t think the outside powers can do very much

except encourage a bilateral arrangement at the moment, just a temporary one, just to get over this bump in the road.”

—AFP