Pakistan to figure in US-India strategic dialogue

WASHINGTON: The first India-US strategic dialogue, which begins in Washington on Tuesday, is also expected to focus heavily on Pakistan, as the two sides have indicated.

"Increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India," wrote US General Stanley McChrystal, who is in charge of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, in a leaked assessment of the war last September. - Photo by Reuters.

Two Indian ministers - Kapil Sibbal and Montek Singh Ahluwalia - arrived in Washington on Monday for the talks. External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna arrives on Tuesday morning.

State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley was the first to indicate that the US-India talks would also focus on issues that concern both India and Pakistan.

Security and counter-terrorism were an ingredient of America's dialogue with both countries, Mr Crowley said, describing it as "a shared challenge that the United States, India, Pakistan, other countries have".

An official of the Indian Ministry for External Affairs told journalists in New Delhi that among the global and regional issues likely to be discussed during the talks, "the situation in Afghanistan-Pakistan region would be the key focus area".

Indian diplomats said "the issue of continuing support of terror groups by Islamabad" was also expected to come up at the dialogue which would also lay the ground for President Barack Obama's visit to India in November.

The influential Wall Street Journal newspaper published an opinion piece on Monday, noting the Indians were also concerned about a point included in a joint statement issued after President Obama's first visit to China in November.

The statement called on the Chinese to play the role of an honest broker in reducing tensions in South Asia. "The statement upset India because China has long been a staunch ally of Pakistan, and has used it as a strategic surrogate in South Asia," the newspaper noted.

"This was not the only diplomatic contretemps that raised hackles in New Delhi. Senior-level officials in the administration have repeatedly sought to link progress on counter-terrorism efforts along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to the fraught issue of the Kashmir, which India regards as an internal matter," the paper noted.

US think tank experts, who spoke to the media, noted that the Obama administration was grappling with how to balance India's role in Afghanistan as Pakistan also jostles for influence there.

"Increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India," wrote US General Stanley McChrystal, who is in charge of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, in a leaked assessment of the war last September.