NEW DELHI, May 6: US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was quoted on Monday as saying that cross-borer infiltration into held Kashmir had declined but Washington was concerned nevertheless by the potential for a flare-up between India and Pakistan.
“Infiltration across the Line of Control in Kashmir from Pakistan has declined recently,” The Hindu newspaper quoted the US official as saying. It said there was still some confusion, however, if the decline was due to deliberate actions or because of weather conditions.
“In the winter when there’s snow, there is some reduction anyway... so it is difficult for me to sit here on May 1 and tell you that the reduction is because of a definite political will,” Armitage said. But, he noted, the Bush administration has had discussions with President Pervez Musharraf on the subject and does believe that his “intentions are to do just that” but “it will take a while to see if he’s been successful.”
In the interview with The Hindu editor Malini Parthasarthy in Washington, the official confirmed the active role of the United States in speaking to both India and Pakistan to calm the simmering tensions. “President Musharraf knows perfectly well, just as the Government of India knows perfectly well, we are talking with both sides,” he said.
The American effort, he explained, is “first of all, to try to reduce the level of potential violence as well as the actual level of violence across the LoC in Kashmir... in the first instance, we have to bring down the temperature... we are devoting a lot of efforts towards that.”
The Bush administration has had discussions with the Government of India “about the need to be balanced and measured.” It has had similar talks with President Musharraf. The US-Pakistan discussions focussed “additionally on the need to stop the cross-border terrorism,” Armitage said.
He also pointed out that the US government had placed the Lashkar-i-Taiba and the Jaish-i-Mohammed on the terrorism list to indicate its own view “of what sort of groups are undermining stability in South Asia.”
Indicating that the primary concern of the United States in respect of the tensions between India and Pakistan was that both countries had nuclear weapons, Armitage said: “To the extent that two highly armed armies face each other over a volatile situation, there is always a possibility of a spark and I fear that spark... it’s more the unintended consequences that can come from having two spring-loaded armies facing each other over a volatile situation that I fear...”
Highlighting the enhanced international scrutiny of the military capabilities of the two nuclear states was Armitage’s pointed observation during the course of the conversation that “we don’t like the fact that both India and Pakistan are nuclear... we’ll be looking very carefully at delivery systems, ranges and things like that. We’ll be doing our best to try to bring down the temperature in South Asia and I am talking about political temperature so that one side or the other will never even contemplate the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons.”
Asked whether there was now on the part of the United States a realistic acknowledgement of the nuclear status of India and Pakistan, the Deputy Secretary said that while the big five powers had de jure status, there was no question that India and Pakistan had become “de facto” nuclear states because of their nuclear devices. “We don’t like it and no one else likes it but it is a fact and so that’s where we are,” he observed.
Was there any suggestion either from Washington or an offer from New Delhi to station American troops in India to assist the US military operations in Afghanistan? Mr Armitage’s response was that he did not see the necessity for that. “I don’t think we’ve requested... and I just can’t imagine why we would want to station troops in India... (but) the interesting thing about this war on terrorism is that we’re not sure where it goes next. So I wouldn’t rule anything out.”
Asked if the United States was sanguine about the political stability of its ally in the war on terror, President Musharraf, in the context of the recent referendum and the consequent political polarisation, Armitage was all praise for Gen Musharraf’s “fundamental” decision last September to “take Pakistan out of the cul-de sac (which) he recognised as a dead end... “ and to join the United States in its war.
Armitage noted that fears then about whether Gen Musharraf could pull it off in the face of the angry street protests in Pakistan last year had proven groundless. Even at this moment, it was for Gen Musharraf to “be the judge of how much stability is there in his government... “
On the controversial referendum and the issue of democracy in Pakistan, Armitage said: “Our view regarding Pakistan is that 140 plus million people deserve better governance than they’ve got in recent years even under fully democratic governments and... President Musharraf has promised us that there will be parliamentary elections in the fall that will be open and fair and full and in which the opposition will speak their mind as appropriate. We trust that he will be a man of his word.”