The Hindu : There should be no infiltration across the LoC: Haass

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 07, 2003

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There should be no infiltration across the LoC: Haass

The Director, Policy Planning Staff, U.S. State Department, Richard Haass, with the U. S. Ambassador, Robert Blackwill, at an interactive meeting on `Current challenge of American foreign policy' organised by the FICCI, in New Delhi on Monday . — Special Arrangement

NEW DELHI Jan. 6. The United States will continue to consult India on the Iraqi situation as Washington and New Delhi were "natural partners and natural allies", a senior U.S. State Department official told presspersons today.

Richard Haass, Director, Policy Planning Staff in the U.S. State Department, said, "The U.S. will continue to consult closely with India and where there could be opportunities or situations in which the U.S. would turn to India to ask it to do certain things and in that case, I would hope that the Indian Government will see fit to do it." Asked whether there was hard bargaining for India's support for an attack on Iraq and Washington's backing on cross-border terrorism, he replied, "We do such things not as a part of bargaining with one another... simply because we agree with them." To a question whether action against Iraq was imminent, Mr. Haass made it clear that Iraq had to disarm and that the present situation could not be allowed to go on forever.

Mr. Haass, who held meetings with the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, and the Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal, said there was no disagreement on terrorism-related issues. "The U.S. has pressed the Pakistani Government to shut down all support for infiltration across the Line of Control (LoC). So, I don't see any fundamental disagreements there either."

A Foreign Office spokesman said Mr. Sinha had told Mr. Haass that there had been no change in the situation as far as cross-border terrorism was concerned — neither on the ground nor as far as rhetoric on the issue was concerned. The issue of Iraq and North Korea also came up for discussion. The focus was on bilateral relations — civilian space cooperation and facilitation of hi-tech, dual-purpose trade.

The spokesman said the first meeting of the high-level technical group, which deals with such issues would take place in February when Mr. Sibal travels to Washington for Foreign Office consultations.

Earlier, at an interactive session organised by FICCI, Mr. Haass spoke of the limits to American power in deciding the future of societies such as Pakistan. Asked whether the LoC should be the "official border" between India and Pakistan, he said this was something that had to be decided by the two countries. It is not something that "will be made" in America or imposed by it.

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