'Better to keep India away from Afghan war role'

The United States administration believes the involvement of India and neighbouring countries in the security component of the US-led war on terror in Afghanistan will complicate the situation, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert O Blake has said.

In an interaction that followed a conference on the expectations of the summit between US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh next week -- when asked what the US expectations of India in Afghanistan were in the wake of Pakistani paranoia that there is an Indian imprint in that country (Afghanistan) -- Blake said, "We welcome the important role that India has played in Afghanistan."

"India has invested more than $1.2 billion in various kinds of reconstruction projects in Afghanistan," he said, lauding New Delhi for "playing a key role in helping to stabilise Afghanistan and providing more opportunities for the Afghan people."

"So we welcome Indian cooperation," he added.

But when the questioner persisted and asked if the US wanted India to go beyond its economic role in helping reconstruction and infrastructure development in Afghanistan, Blake said, "That's up to India to decide. I don't want to start trying to dictate what India should or shouldn't do."

However, later when retired Lieutenant Colonel Ronny Datta, president of the Indian Veteran Officers Association of North America, made a plea for Indian security to join with US security forces to hunt down the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Blake said, "With respect to security forces, I think there has been a general reluctance to get the forces of neighbouring countries involved and that is not just India, but Central Asia as well."

The senior US official -- who served as the number two man at the US embassy in New Delhi in 2006 and thereafter as US ambassador in Sri Lanka -- said this was "because it would have a certain complicating effect on some of the efforts that NATO and ISAF and so forth are trying to get accomplished there."

"But again, we continue to consult very, very closely with our friends in India on the situation in Afghanistan," Blake said, and acknowledged that the US was cognisant that India certainly had "a stake in the outcome" of the war in Afghanistan since the Taliban and other extremists posed a threat to India too.