The Hindu : U.S. could not make Pak. give up terrorism: Brajesh

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 12, 2002

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U.S. could not make Pak. give up terrorism: Brajesh

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

Washington Dec. 11. The United States and others in the international community have repeatedly talked to Pakistan about ending cross-border terrorism, but the fact is that inspite of all these efforts, the results have not been satisfactory from India's point of view, says Brajesh Mishra, National Security Adviser and Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister.

Mr. Mishra is in Washington on a three-day visit and is meeting top officials of the Bush administration for what he termed as ``wide-ranging discussions'' on all aspects of bilateral relations as well as regional and other issues.

``The U.S. and other Governments have talked repeatedly to Islamabad to end infiltration of terrorists, wind up camps and the infrastructure of the militants... We cannot complain on that score,'' Mr. Mishra said and added that the results of the efforts were ``not satisfactory'' from India's perspective.

``Yes, they made efforts. We're grateful... but they did not succeed... We cannot blame the United States for cross-border terrorism not ending. The blame lies elsewhere,'' he told mediapersons here on Tuesday evening.

He maintained that there could be no dialogue with Pakistan unless cross-border terrorism ceased and that the Bush administration did not lean on India ``this time'' to resume talks with Islamabad. ``How can we talk, with cross-border terrorism still going on.''

Asking India to forget about cross-border terrorism and talk to Pakistan would amount to adopting double standards on terrorism.

Mr. Mishra had extensive discussions, including a three-hour meeting with his counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, and a long session with the Secretary of State, Colin Powell.

He had also met the Directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agencies. He described his interactions as ``very satisfactory''.

In Washington, during a media briefing at the Embassy of India, Mr. Mishra said he had discussed ``fairly extensively'' with American policy-makers cooperation in the peaceful uses of space, nuclear energy and high technology; and hoped that some progress would be made.

Mr. Mishra argued that the recent revelations on North Korea-Pakistan should not be turned into a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan for the simple reason that the development of nuclear weapons by North Korea affected a lot of countries.

Asked to comment on Washington's so-called ``demarche'' to India over Afghanistan, he did not get into details other than saying ``that incident is behind us''.

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