US, India have stakes in Pakistan's future: Blackwill
Pakistan Times Foreign Desk Report

BANGALORE (India): “The US must enter into “intense and secret” discussions with India regarding the future of Pakistan,” former US Ambassador Robert D Blackwill said on Tuesday, according to a foreign news agency.

“The US and India have a huge stake in the future of Pakistan,” Blackwill said in a talk on India-US relations.

Blackwill said both countries want a “democratic, stable and prosperous” Pakistan, a key US ally in the war on terrorism, but also a country that India accuses of harbouring a large terrorist network.

Blackwill said, “Now, Pakistan is unstable, because it depends on one man for governance.”

Booster for India

Blackwill, a long-time booster for India who helped bring the US and India much closer during his 2001-2003 tenure as ambassador, is a close aide of US President George W Bush and has served as the White House’s director of post-war policy for Iraq. He now works for a Washington, DC-based lobbying firm.

Blackwill said the Bush administration had sought "to strike a balance between the imperative to work with Pakistan in the war against terror and the need to see the terrorist network inside Pakistan dismantled."

“The terrorist infrastructure is still there,” he viewed.

Perspective

India and Pakistan have a long history of bitterness, particularly over their conflicting claims to the Himalayan territory of Kashmir, but have held extensive peace talks since January 2004 to improve relations.

India accuses Pakistan of training and arming freedom fighters who want independence for Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan. Pakistan says it only gives them only moral and diplomatic support.

India wants the US to put pressure on Pakistan "to crack down on the militants."
But Blackwill said the US has to be careful not to act too harshly. “If Pakistan is isolated, what will it lead to?” he asked.

Instead, the US must talk to India to find ways for the return of democracy and stability in Pakistan, "along with the destruction of terrorist bases", he said.

“We should initiate an intense and secret discussion with India regarding the future of Pakistan, including contingency planning,” Blackwill said, without elaborating.

Drawing a roadmap for India and the US to improve relations further, Blackwill said the Bush administration must promote expansion of the G-8 group of industrialised countries to include India and China.

“Their economic punch and increasing geopolitical reach demand that they also be at the table,” he said.

The US must also freely sell civilian nuclear reactors, advanced weapon systems and high technology goods to India, and should support India’s ambition of a permanent seat on the US Security Council, he contended. But India also must open its markets wider to US goods and investments, he said.●