Author: Shibi Alex Chandy, Indo-Asian
News Service
Publication: Yahoo News
Date: September 13, 2002
URL: http://in.news.yahoo.com/020913/43/1v6p6.html
It was a day that began with the
Indian delegation accompanying Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee being
seemingly on their guard, if not on the defensive.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf
had finished his address to the 57th session of the United Nations General
Assembly Thursday, launching an anti-India tirade that was unusually virulent
with references to Kashmir and Gujarat.
United States President George W.
Bush appeared totally focused on his proposed action against Iraq, having
seemingly forgotten the terrorism that New Delhi says is being fostered
by Islamabad in strife-torn Jammu and Kashmir.
Could the delegation expect anything
positive from the meeting scheduled between Vajpayee and Bush? The underlying
feeling suggested the answer was a tentative "no."
By the end of the day, however,
there was a spring in the step of the Indian officials and diplomats accompanying
the prime minister on his six-day visit to New York. Their relief was palpable.
The bilateral between the two leaders of the world's largest democracies
had not only gone well but surpassed expectations.
For one, the 35-minute meeting -
the longest Bush is believed to have spent with any world leader -- was
held in an "exceptionally warm" atmosphere, diplomatese for an encounter
that went very well.
More importantly, Bush came out
strongly in support of some of India's pet concerns, according to Foreign
Secretary Kanwal Sibal, effectively blunting the bluster Musharraf had
put on earlier in the day.
Bush unambiguously condemned terrorism
and made it clear that the U.S. would not accept any justification for
such violence. He even rejected any distinction between terrorism and freedom
struggle, the veritable theme of Musharraf's address to the U.N. just a
few hours earlier.
Musharraf had accused India of misusing
the rationale of the war against terrorism by seeking to de-legitimise
the Kashmir freedom struggle. But Sibal, who briefed the media about the
meeting, quoted Bush as saying that if people were fighting for freedom,
such a struggle should be based on the principles and tenets of freedom
- it should not involve the taking of innocent lives.
Responding to yet another of India's
concerns, which Vajpayee spelt out at the meeting, Bush also assured the
prime minister that the U.S. would use its leverage with Islamabad and
push for a peaceful election in Jammu and Kashmir.
In recent days, violence in Jammu
and Kashmir has been stepped up, peaking with the assassination of a minister
in the National Conference government in the state, a killing that Bush
unequivocally condemned.
The U.S. president also seemed to
have surprised the Indian delegation by assuring Vajpayee of his "personal
commitment" to qualitatively transforming India-U.S. ties into a "broad-based
strategic relationship" in the future.
The general contours of this relationship
was discussed in the context of the bilateral agenda set by the two leaders
at their meeting in Washington, D.C., last November, Sibal said, and would
involve a focus on removing the "bureaucratic and administrative hurdles"
in the way of the high-tech trade between the two countries.
Areas such as space, diverse forms
of energy, high technology, commerce, science and even nuclear technology
that have suffered because of the U.S. restrictions on transfer of technology
could now get a filip. Clearly, a major gain.
The foreign secretary said President
Bush spoke about the commonalities of shared democratic values, the entrepreneurial
spirit and the intellectual energy from which both New Delhi and Washington
had benefited.
Bush, who expressed a keen desire
to visit India, then made a case for his administration's Iraq policy,
emphasizing the need for the U.N. to assume its role and responsibility
on the issue. Sibal said the U.S. president's remarks were more in the
nature of bringing home the seriousness of the Iraq situation and the need
to deal with it - it was not to be construed as a declaration of military
action against Baghdad.
The Indian team accompanying Vajpayee
to the meeting at the Permanent U.S. Mission at the U.N. included External
Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra,
Sibal, Joint Secreatry (U.S. and Canada) Jayant Prasad and Joint in Prime
Minister's Office P.S. Raghavan.
Bush was aided by Secretary of State
Colin Powell, his deputy Christina Rocca, Jim Moriarty of the National
Security Council and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
That the two sides were keen to
take things forward as soon as possible was evident from the almost back-to-
back meetings Mishra had with Rice and Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage at which several of the themes briefly touched upon by Bush and
Vajpayee were taken up in detail.
Mishra and Rice had detailed discussions
on the current India-Pakistan situation with special reference to Musharraf's
U.N. speech, described as a clear statement of the negative positions taken
by the Pakistani ruler. A detailed note on the latest incidents of violence
in Jammu and Kashmir was provided by the Indian side, including on Pakistan's
bid to disrupt the assembly elections and its continued support to cross-border
terrorism.
Sticking firmly to the Indian position,
Mishra told his interlocuter that there was no question of resuming a dialogue
with Pakistan as long as there was no change in the ground situation with
regard to cross-border terrorism. The Indians also underlined the fact
that Musharraf had not lived up to his commitment to the international
community to contain terrorist and extremist elements within his country.
The Indians have come away from
the meeting with a feeling that the U.S. will, indeed, keep up pressure
on Pakistan to end cross-border terror and infiltration across the Line
of Control. Officials believe that the pressure is working, though the
results could have been better.
