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US offers help in Sierra Leone hostage crisis

The United States has assured India of applying ''maximum-possible pressure in all forms'' to secure the early release of 20 Indian peacekeepers being held hostage in Sierra Leone by the Revolutionary United Front, an army spokesman said today.

This was conveyed by Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering and Assistant Secretary of State Karl Inderfurth to a senior Indian official delegation in Washington.

US President Bill Clinton also spoke to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on the issue last week.

The delegation, which expressed serious concern over the hostage issue, comprised Director General of Military Operations Lt Gen N C Vij, India's ambassador to the US Naresh Chandra and senior officials from the defence and external affairs ministries.

The Indian team which held intensive parleys with senior UN officials in New York told the world body that under no circumstances should the release of Indian troops be allowed to be linked with ''any political bargaining.''

It was also clarified that Indian troops had been deployed only in a ''peace-keeping role''.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee wrote to Liberian President Charles Taylor and sought his intervention in securing the release of the detainees, a foreign office spokesman said.

Vajpayee expressed concern over the detention of the Indian peacekeepers in Pendembu and blockade of over 200 other Indian soldiers in Kailahun.

The letter was personally delivered by India's High Commissioner in Ghana A K Bannerjee.

The condition of the sick sepoy, whose name was not given out, was stable, the spokesman said. The other hostages continue to be under detention in Pendembu.

He said the general situation in Sierra Leone was "peaceful'.'

In Cairo, Vice President Krishan Kant met Nigerian President Olusegum Obasanjo who apprised him of the ongoing efforts to secure the release of the detainees.

Annan has spoken to leaders of West African countries to assist in ending the impasse.

Vajpayee and Obasanjo have twice spoken to each other on telephone recently, with the Nigerian leader assuring that all efforts would be made for the safe release of the Indian peacekeepers.

PTI

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