WASHINGTON, July, 24: The United States does not hope for a major breakthrough during the forthcoming visit of Secretary of State Colin Powell to South Asia, US experts and South Asian diplomats told Dawn on Wednesday.
Powell leaves for the region on Friday, arriving first in New Delhi on July 27, and will be in Islamabad the next day, before heading for Brunei to attend a meeting of the South East Asian nations.
During a recent meeting with Pakistan’s outgoing ambassador, Maleeha Lodhi, Powell told her that because of the dangers involved in a possible India-Pakistan conflict, the United States wants to stay engaged in that region.
And diplomatic observers in Washington say that the entire visit is about “staying engaged”.
A state department official described the US objectives in South Asia as “disengaging troops from the border and promoting India-Pakistan dialogue”.
But observers say that US officials do not expect to achieve any of these objectives during Powell’s visit.
Despite sustained US efforts, India has continued to keep hundreds of thousands of additional troops along its border with Pakistan since December after an attack on the Indian parliament.
India also severed travel links with Pakistan and withdrew its ambassador from Islamabad.
Despite constant nudging from Washington, New Delhi has refused to resume talks with Pakistan until Islamabad “permanently stops cross-border attacks into (the Indian held) Kashmir,” as New Delhi’s new foreign minister, Yashwant Sinha, says.
Officials in Washington acknowledge that they do not expect India to withdraw its troops from the border until the state elections in Kashmir later this year. Some officials also say that India may not withdraw until national elections.
Since it is still two years to the Indian national elections, “such assessments increase Pakistan’s concerns,” as a senior Pakistani diplomat said.
But US South Asia experts say that the Indians believe their economy is strong enough to allow them to keep their troops on the border for a long period. This, they believe, will bring Pakistan’s economy under pressure to accept Indian demands.
Talking about the Indian demands, experts say that a mere pledge by Pakistan to stop infiltrations “no matter how sincere” will not satisfy India.
Similarly, they say, India has no intention of resuming dialogue with Pakistan either, at least not in the near future.
The experts argue that since the Dec 15 attack on the parliament building in New Delhi, India has taken the tensions to such a height that now it cannot afford to deescalate the situation without extricating a tangible concession from Pakistan.
Mending relations with Pakistan without “any victory,” as one expert put it, will irk the hard-line Hindu supporters of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and may hurt it in the national elections.
Because of such concerns, the US officials do not expect India to move away from its stated positions on its ties with Pakistan during Powell’s visit.
“Powell is going basically to tell both India and Pakistan that the US government is concerned about the situation in the region and that it plans to stay engaged,” says Ambassador Lodhi.
“Powell also has taken a personal interest in South Asia since October last year” when the US-led war on terrorism began, says Lodhi who thanked the US secretary of state “for his personal diplomacy in defusing tensions” at a recent meeting in Washing-ton.
Lodhi expects Powell to focus on three points in his talks with both Indian and Pakistani leaders: the need for restraint, a substantive de-escalation, and resumption of bilateral talks.
