No question of talks with Pak, India to US

NEW DELHI: U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice called her counterpart Brajesh Mishra in Copenhagen during Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit there for the annual India-European Union summit last week.

Rice urged India to resume the dialogue with Pakistan in the wake of the successful conduct of legislative assembly elections in the strategic border state.

Rice was told in no uncertain terms that it was unrealistic for anyone to expect New Delhi to talk to Islamabad in the present atmosphere after nearly 800 people were killed by Pakistan-backed terrorists during the poll campaign and balloting in Jammu and Kashmir.

Rice was also told that the troop mobilization that has resulted in India and Pakistan being locked in a tense 10-month long military standoff would continue, senior officials who accompanied the prime minister said.

India and Pakistan have deployed a million troops along their border since December last year.

Vajpayee returned to New Delhi from London at midnight Sunday night after a three-nation European tour that took him to Cyprus, Denmark and Britain.

Rice's call for talks was just one of the many that Indian officials at the highest level have had to deal with.

The European Union has also urged India and Pakistan to resume dialogue, though Vajpayee said in Copenhagen that there was "no pressure" on him as such from the international community to resume talks with Pakistan.

India's stand is that the international community should put "more pressure" on Pakistan to end its policy of promoting violence in Jammu and Kashmir before asking New Delhi to restart a dialogue with Islamabad. Pakistan denies it supports terrorism and says it merely gives moral support to "freedom fighters" in Kashmir.

Last week's provincial and parliamentary elections in Pakistan only seem to have exacerbated the tense sub-continental situation.

India sees the emergence of fundamentalist and extremist elements in Pakistan as a "cause for concern" and is waiting to see what kind of equation Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf would have with these parties which seem set to control Balochistan and North West Frontier Province, the two provinces bordering Afghanistan.

There is a feeling among Indian officials - which they have shared with some of their interlocutors - that Musharraf may have reached some understanding with these parties, which went under the name of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), prior to the elections and could use them as pawns in a larger strategic game that should be of concern to both India and the West.
Source: IANS