The Hindu : Sinha will be in Nepal when Armitage arrives

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 17, 2002

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Sinha will be in Nepal when Armitage arrives

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI Aug. 16. The External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, will not be in town when the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, arrives here on August 23. The Union Home Minister, L.K. Advani, too, will be out of the country.

As of now, Mr. Armitage, who visited New Delhi in June, is scheduled to meet the National Security Adviser, Brajesh Mishra, and the Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal. Mr. Armitage, who arrives in New Delhi from Colombo, goes to Islamabad on August 24.

Mr. Sinha will be in Kathmandu for the SAARC Foreign Ministers meeting on August 21-22. His visit to Kathmandu turns bilateral for a day on August 23 (the day Mr. Armitage will in New Delhi) and from Nepal he travels to Bangladesh for a two-day visit.

It is instructive to look at the list of those Mr. Armitage met the last time he was here. Apart from a 35-minute meeting with the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, he held talks with the then External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh, and called on Mr. Advani and the Leader of the Opposition, Sonia Gandhi. The Defence Minister, George Fernandes, hosted a dinner for him and Brajesh Mishra held separate talks with him.

While New Delhi may well argue that Mr. Sinha had a prior programme to visit Nepal, the fact remains that given the importance India has accorded to relations with Washington, the External Affairs Minister's absence will be noted.

In the past, Jaswant Singh never stood on protocol as far as meetings with the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State were concerned — whether it was Mr. Armitage or his predecessor, Strobe Talbott. Referring to Mr. Armitage's June visit, the Minister of State for External Affairs, Digvijay Singh, informed the Rajya Sabha on July 18 that the U.S. official ``conveyed to the Government that during his visit to Islamabad, just preceding his visit to New Delhi, President Musharraf had given the assurance that he would take steps to end cross-border infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir immediately and permanently and to fulfil the promises he made successively on January 12 and May 27''.

Clearly, Mr. Armitage's ``message'' from Pakistan was crucial in New Delhi's subsequent move to lift the ban on Pakistani aircraft overflying Indian air space and to identity Harsh Bhasin as the possible High Commissioner to Islamabad.

The man who brought the news of Gen. Musharraf's pledge will find that India sticks to the view that infiltration from Pakistan is continuing and that New Delhi rejects the formulation that Islamabad is helpful in the war against terrorism.

India, perhaps, is of the view that as of now it is Gen. Musharraf who needs to be ``spoken to'' about the continuing infiltration and incidents that have been taking place in Jammu and Kashmir.

During the July visit of the U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, initial indications suggested that he would not be meeting the Prime Minister. Finally, he did call on Mr. Vajpayee.

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