US endorses Indian role in Afghanistan - US - World - The Times of India
WASHINGTON: The United States has endorsed India's regional primacy, i
ncluding the role it is playing in Afghanistan, against strenuous objections from Pakistan.
In the process, Washington also
rubbished Islamabad's allegations that New Delhi was using Kabul to destabilize Pakistan, saying once again that Pakistan needs to worry about its own terrorists rather than Indian presence in Afghanistan.
Key American pronouncements in this regard came during an interview by US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (Af-Pak) Richard Holbrooke to a Pakistani television network, whose host asked him about India's locus standi vis-à-vis Afghanistan when "it does not have a common border or a Pashtun population."
"Of course...India will have a role. It is the second biggest country in the world! What India does matters to the world!" Holbrooke exclaimed.
When the host followed up by asking Holbrooke about what
Pakistan claims are subversive actions carried out by over-staffed (by spies) Indian consulates in Afghanistan bordering Pakistan, Holbrooke simply laughed at the idea.
"Pakistan has told me India has hundreds of people in (the consulate) at Kandahar," he chortled. "I asked people...asked Americans and the UN...how big is the Indian consulate in Kandahar...and they said six to eight people."
"Pakistan does not have to worry about Indians in Afghanistan. It has to worry about miscreants in western Pakistan," Holbrooke advised.
The allegation that India is supporting separatist elements in Balochistan has become a part of the new Pakistani narrative.
Some Pakistanis see a grand conspiracy involving New Delhi, Washington, and even Israel to divide Pakistan and divest it of its "nuclear assets." No less a person than Pakistan's interior secretary Rehman Malik offered "proof" of Indian involvement in Balochistan to Pakistani law-makers recently.
While even the liberal Pakistani media has scoffed at the idea of India's involvement in Balochistan, it has been advanced by some American experts in Washington who are seen as sympathetic to Islamabad. Christine Fair, an analyst with Rand Corporation, recently suggested darkly that New Delhi was not entirely above board, saying Indian personnel were doing more than just distributing visas at its consulates bordering Pakistan's western border.
But Holbrooke, who would have access to definitive intelligence,
showed little patience for such conspiracy theories that appear aimed at manipulating domestic public opinion in Pakistan against India. He said there is "no evidence at all, that Indians are supporting miscreants" in Pakistan along its border with Afghanistan.
Further defending New Delhi's role in Afghanistan, Holbrooke said the United States did not tell India what to do in that country. India had given $ 1 billion to Afghanistan and "the assistance is very public." India had built Afghanistan’s parliament building, "a very useful road in the south west" linking Iran, trained agriculture experts and given scholarships.
"All of that is open. What India is doing is part of the international efforts. I don't think it should be of concern to Pakistan," Holbrooke said. It is the first time that any administration official has so bluntly told Pakistan that it was way out of league and out of line in objecting to India's presence in Afghanistan, with which New Delhi claims historical and millennial ties, and a contiguity that predates Islam. It appeared to be part of the many "painful, specific" conversations that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said US officials were having with Pakistan to explain its place in the scheme of things.
Holbrooke also avoided the interviewer's effort to draw him into a discussion on Kashmir, saying "my job is only Afghanistan and Pakistan...and when I go to India it is only to consult them and keep them abreast and to let them know what is happening."
He joked that the media was constantly trying to get him "to say the K-word and I try not to say it."