New Delhi, October 22
The US Under Secretary for Political Affairs today had two rounds of substantive talks for six hours with Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran where the two sides discussed Asian Security, but the Americans did not come up with any list of do’s and don’ts on Iran and the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline did not even come up for discussion.
Pakistan figured prominently in today’s brainstorming between the two sides and accounted for a large portion of the points of divergences between India and the US. The two familiar areas of Pakistan-specific divergences between the two sides were the upcoming delivery of American F-16 warplanes to Pakistan and the unabated terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir despite the October 8 massive earthquake in the region.
India lodged a strong protest on F-16s which the Americans dismissed. On terrorism, the Americans did share the Indian concern that terrorists were going full throttle despite a grave human disaster in Kashmir, particularly the Pakistan-administered parts of Kashmir. The Indian side conveyed its sense that the continued terror trail in J&K was an attempt by Islamabad to demonstrate to the world that it was not terrorism but home-grown
insurgency that Kashmir was grappling with.
The Indians pointed out to Mr Burns and his delegation that the terrorism infrastructure was not only intact but of late it had been beefed up considerably. The Indian side maintained that it felt here was a clear case of putting Pakistan on a tight leash and Washington needed to do a lot more on this count than what it has been doing. The American side said Washington was doing its utmost in pressuring Pakistan on the issue of terrorism and would continue to do so.
Today’ talks — four-and-a-half
hours in the morning and one-and-a-half hours in the evening — were in the nature of mutual sharing of information and analysis where the two sides discussed Asian Security with a country-by-country approach. Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, apart from Pakistan came up for pointed discussions. Besides, the two sides also discussed regions like East Asia, South East Asia and Central Asia where the US has vital sweepstakes, and exchanged information and analysis.
The two sides also discussed Iran against the backdrop of its controversial nuclear programme but it was in the nature of exchanging each other’s points of view and information.
The upcoming November 24 Board of Governors meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna did not come up for discussion as it is still more than a month away — the idea being that since India and the US have now gotten into the habit of regular high-level consultations, the issue can be taken up for discussion just before the IAEA meeting.
There was no attempt from the American side to suggest a roadmap for India on Iran and what course India’s Iran policy should take.
Mr Burns had yesterday made it amply clear that the US was committed to implementing the July 18 Indo-US nuclear agreement, that there were no
additional conditionalities from the American side and that Indo-US ties were not predicated upon India’s relations with Iran.
Mr Burns paid a courtesy call on External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh today but during this meeting also Iran issue was not raised.
Mr Burns also had a meeting with National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan this evening. He left for Washington later in the evening.
