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India seeks to dissuade US from cutting deal with Pakistan

P Jayaram in New Delhi

India is peeved at Pakistan for putting what it feels are unprincipled and unacceptable conditionalities for support to US military actions in Afghanistan, and is sending National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra to Washington to dissuade the Bush administration from agreeing to them.

Mishra is expected to land in Washington on Tuesday, with External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh slated to follow suit.

Both would be telling Washington that New Delhi would not appreciate any 'unprincipled deal' with Islamabad.

The decision to send Mishra, who is now in Moscow, to Washington for discussions was conveyed by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to President George W Bush, when the latter called him on Sunday.

Bush reportedly welcomed the move and said his National Security Adviser, Condoleeza Rice, would hold discussions with him, officials said.

"This is not the time to bargain. Either you are committed to fighting terrorism or to bargaining to achieve you narrow interests," Mishra and Singh are expected to tell the US officials.

The sources said they were not surprised by the pre-conditions put forward by Pakistan for its support for US military operations against terrorist hideouts in Afghanistan, but hoped that the US would not enter into such bargains.

Reports from Islamabad said among the pre-conditions set by President Pervez Musharraf for his country's support to the US were Washington should intervene in Jammu and Kashmir and India and Israel should be kept out of any military action against Afghanistan.

"It is quite regrettable that some states put pre-conditions for co-operation in the fight against terrorism, instead of joining forces with the rest of the world to combat terrorism," an Israeli diplomat commented.

"This is a diabolical move. The fellow (Musharraf) is caught in a bad bind. His sins have caught up with him," a former envoy to Washington said.

He was referring to the international perception that Afghanistan's Taleban regime is a creation of Islamabad and Indian accusations that Pakistan was abetting cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.

Islamabad has always maintained it only extends moral and diplomatic support to the Taleban and to the 'freedom struggle' in Jammu and Kashmir.

The sources said having created the Taleban and the Jehadi groups in Jammu and Kashmir, Musharraf was facing the biggest crisis since he seized power two years ago.

"If he doesn't co-operate with the US in the operations against Afghanistan, he knows that the Americans can tighten the screws economically. They can finish him. He is living on borrowed funds. If he did co-operate, the fundamentalist forces in his country, which he had actively encouraged will be after his blood," one source said.

"That's why he has set the pre-conditions to divert attention. He is selling the line to his country that by supporting the US we can get its support for Kashmir and the Mujahideen can continue their activities in Kashmir," the source added.

However, some like G Parthasarathy, former Indian envoy to Islamabad, said 'this kind of bargain would not be accepted by the US because the Americans would find such bargaining rather cheap'.

While Washington is going through a traumatic situation, Islamabad's 'selfish and narrow' demands would anger ordinary Americans, he said, and added the fundamentalist forces in Pakistan would also oppose such support.

"The Americans' problem is that they need Pakistan to carry out the operations against the Taleban and Osama bin Laden," Parthasarathy added.

Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile in Afghanistan, is believed to be the mastermind behind the terrorist strikes in New York and Washington.

The former envoy said, "Our approach with the US has to be that you are committed to rooting out terrorism. Pakistan has been using terrorism as a tool of statecraft to achieve its objective in Kashmir. If you strike a deal (with Islamabad) your image will be blotted."

Former foreign secretary J N Dixit said, "We must tell them (US) we expect you to assist us in the fight against terrorism (in Jammu and Kashmir). This is the test by which we will judge whether you are really against terrorism or not."

Indo-Asian News Service

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