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US trying to link nonproliferation
with Kashmir: Expert

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

With India rejecting any possibility of talks over Kashmir with Pakistan, the US may now attempt to link the issue of nuclear nonproliferation with the sensitive Indian border state to browbeat India into talking to Islamabad.

During Secretary of State Colin Powell's recent visit, India not only flatly refused to resume dialogue with Pakistan, it also rejected Powell's suggestion that international observers be allowed into Jammu and Kashmir during the forthcoming assembly elections there.

Dr R R Subramaniam, a specialist in nuclear affairs at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, said Powell's assertion during his press conference on Sunday that Assistant Secretary of State (nonproliferation) John Wolf would be accompanying Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to India soon was indicative of this.

He pointed out that Powell's statement made it clear that the Bush administration would continue its efforts to bring India and Pakistan to the negotiating table.

"Washington wants to link the nuclear issue with Kashmir now. It is just Washington's way of saying that it is not discouraged by New Delhi's stand on the issue of foreign observers and talks with Pakistan," Subramaniam said.

The Ministry of External Affairs spokeswoman Nirupama Rao had on Sunday, soon after Powell's press conference, underscored that India rejected any formal international fact-finding mission to monitor the October assembly election in J&K. She, however, said that diplomats, journalists and visitors were free to visit the state.

"The Indian leadership is clear that dispatching foreign observers to J&K during the polls amounts to messing in our internal affairs. We are no banana republic that we have to be taught how to conduct our polls. It's not for nothing that India is known as the world's largest democracy and Uncle Sam knows it pretty well," Dr Subramaniam pointed out.

The MEA spokeswoman told reporters on July 25 that while foreign visitors were free to go to J&K and all shades of opinion were free to participate in the October polls, it had to be within the framework of the (Indian) Constitution.

Significantly, Wolf wrote an article on July 18, which highlighted nuclear and missile proliferation in South Asia.

"The threat that weapons of mass destruction and missile programmes pose to regional stability is nowhere more evident than in South Asia, where one million troops face each other on the India-Pakistan border. The presence of WMD and missiles in the region has increased dramatically the danger of miscalculation at times of crisis, and the resulting regional instability magnifies the risk of these weapons falling into the hands of terrorists. Yet there is no near-term prospect of getting India and Pakistan to relinquish their nuclear weapons and missiles," the article said.

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