Washington, June 11
US President George Bush will impress upon Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to create a climate in which the “gamble for peace” that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had taken would succeed.

Mr Bush had also assured Mr Vajpayee at St Petersburg that he would take up the issue during his meeting with General Musharraf at Camp David, later this month. Mr Bush had also expressed his strong desire to continue the process of transforming Indo-US relations.

The visiting Deputy Prime Minister, Mr L K Advani, stated this in his opening statement at a media conference held at the Indian Embassy here yesterday. Mr Bush, he said, had “warm admiration” for the gesture shown by Mr Vajpayee in his April 18 statement during his visit to Srinagar. That offer for peace had provided “political space for resolving differences, without foregoing the concern for security”.

On the US request to India for deployment of its troops in Iraq, Mr Advani reiterated that the Cabinet Committee on Security had twice discussed the matter and all aspects were considered. Such deployment request should normally be conveyed though the UN. Several questions had cropped up during the two meetings and certain querries have been posted to the US. A defence team from the Pentagon is visiting India on June 16 and the matter will be discussed further.

Mr Advani made it clear that the USA was not exerting any pressure on India for committing troops to Iraq and India was free to take a decision on the issue after the visit of the Pentagon team, where it would clarify certain points to New Delhi.

Mr Advani is visiting the USA at the invitation of the Vice-President, Mr Richard B. Cheney, whom he met here in the morning. The two discussed “common challenges” like combating Al-Qaida and its extended family, wanton dissemination of weapons of mass destruction and their potential marriage with terrorism.

The Deputy Prime Minister has completed two days of consultations here, which were of “strategic nature” in Indo-US relationship and bilateral agenda. During discussions regional and international issues were also discussed.

Mr Advani said his current visit was not “Pakistan-centric” and unlike the January, 2002, visit when security and terrorism topped his agenda, this time the range of subjects was wide and diverse. This included the ‘trinity’ issues — civilian space co-operation, co-operation in nuclear energy and promotion of high-technology trade in order to provide tangible evidence of the changed relationship. Yet, from the questions asked and the remarks made by Mr Advani it is apparent that Pakistan remained in focus, particularly, when there is not much change in the ground realities in terms of cross-border infiltration, terrorism, training and equipping ‘Jehadis’ to commit acts of violence in J and K. “In fact we have recently busted over 130 training module camps of militants”.

Mr Advani said during his meetings with the US leaders, officials and strategists and ‘Think Tank’ matters of mutual and regional interest were discussed. Besides defence co-operation, combating terrorism also dominated the talks. It had also been decided to strengthen institutional arrangements for exchange of terrorism-related information and intelligence and to continue the fruitful dialogue under the umbrella of bilateral Extradition Treaty and the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, which is likely to be ratified by India shortly.

India and the USA have decided to hold the next meeting of the Defence Policy Group in Washington in August next.

In the meeting Mr Advani had with the Secretary, Homeland Security, issues such as border management, airport and seaport security and co-operation on both interdiction and consequence management technologies to combat potential threats to internal security were discussed.

Mr Advani said in line with his suggestions and in consonance with his own experience, his interaction with the US leadership had helped in promoting both objectives, strategic nature of Indo-US relationship and bilateral co-operation.