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US-India vibes getting visibly better

Both United States President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright have called for the resumption of the Lahore process, apparently emphasising the sense of urgency to restore normalcy in the region disturbed by the Kargil conflict.

Clinton made the pitch during his telephone talk with Indian Prime Minister A B Vajpayee yesterday while Albright spoke of the Lahore process while replying to a question concerning massacres in Jammu and Kashmir.

Though the American insistence on the issue has been interpreted as 'pressure' in certain quarters, Indian Ambassador to the US Naresh Chandra did not think so. After his meeting with US officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Karl Inderfurth, last week, he said the administration was not subjecting New Delhi to any kind of undue pressure.

However, according to observers, India will have first hand information of the US thinking on the issue during External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh's meeting with Albright in Singapore next week.

According to observers, Albright has not used the language of pressure. It could at best be called persuasion, they say.

Meanwhile, Mathew Daley, senior advisor for south Asia in the state department, yesterday, in a speech on US-India relations, said the administration's objective was not only to return to the status quo ante of May 1998 but to establish a qualitatively different kind of relationship with India.

UNI

The Kargil Crisis

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