National
'No plan to station U.S. troops in India'
By Our Special Correspondent
CHENNAI, FEB. 5. As many as 20 licences for defence-related sales to India have been sent to the U.S. Congress ``in the last 10 days,'' the U.S. Ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, said here today.
``We would expect that process not only to continue but accelerate,'' he said and added that the U.S. and India were in the process of a ``continuing discussion'' on defence purchases and that the U.S. had been ``responding to Indian requests.'' This marked a new phase of Indo-U.S. cooperation.
Mr. Blackwill was here in connection with the visit of the flagship of the U.S. Navy's seventh fleet, USS Blue Ridge. The arrival of the ship here also marks the starting of the formal talks between the two Navies. ``We have senior representatives of the American Navy, Army and Air Force meeting with their Indian counterparts to move the defence relationship steeply upward. That will be in the areas of defence sales, joint exercises, intelligence exchanges, military educational exchanges, of strategic discussions, and so forth,'' Mr. Blackwill said.
``There was no thought whatsoever of'' stationing the U.S. troops in India. ``The U.S. has no interest in permanently stationing American forces in India,'' he said but added that U.S. forces might ``visit here briefly'' ``in the context of joint exercises.'' This was reciprocal. ``We hope very much that Indian forces might exercise with the U.S. in appropriate exercise-training areas in the U.S. territory.''
Asked what the U.S. expected from the Indian Navy, Mr. Blackwill said he would ``leave any announcement'' to the Indian Government to make. And on what Indian Navy would gain: ``You should ask the Indian Navy.''
On the U.S. economic assistance to Pakistan, he said this had to be viewed in the context of President Musharraf's assistance to the coalition in the Afghan war and was associated with his purpose of fundamentally reforming Pakistan. ``I always try to resist thinking of the U.S. policy towards south Asia in a hyphenated way. That aid has nothing to do with India whatsoever. The comparison is completely irrelevant. The U.S.-India relationship is being pursued quite seperately from any third party. We believe that the world will be safer, prosperous and democratic as the U.S.-India long-term strategic cooperation is increased,'' he said.
In the U.S. view, the recent escalation in tension between India and Pakistan following the December 13 attack on the Indian Parliament ``has not gone away.'' Though the intensity has been reduced ``to some degree'' it was still very much a reality.
``We continue to work on it everyday in ways we can. A crucial question is infiltration across the line of Control. Our impression is that it may be lessening but that it is too soon to make a systemic judgment about that because given the snow there it is really difficult to tell whether the weather is the reason. We very much hope that infiltration stops. But it will take some weeks to know that for sure and we are watching that with the greatest possible care as I know is the Indian Government,'' he said.
Mr. Blackwill made it clear that India will have to ensure ``sanctity of contract'' in the case of Enron's Dhabhol power project, regardless of Enron's problems in the U.S. ``If American investors come to believe that India does not protect the sanctity of contract, then that will be a death blow to further American investment in India.''
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