Obama issues secret directive on Indo-Pak ties

nrj

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Obama issues secret directive on Indo-Pak ties!


In a secret directive, US President Barack Obama has asked his administration to intensify efforts to make India resolve its tensions with Pakistan, a priority for progress of the "US goals in the region".

He has also asked his officials to intensify American diplomacy aimed at easing tensions between India and Pakistan, asserting that without detente between the two rivals, the administration's efforts to win Pakistani cooperation in Afghanistan would suffer, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The directive, issued in December, concluded that "India must make resolving its tensions with Pakistan a priority for progress to be made on US goals in the region," the US daily said quoting people familiar with its contents.

According to officials, the Pentagon, in particular, has sought more pressure on New Delhi, it said.

The only specific US request to New Delhi has been to "discourage India from getting more involved in training the Afghan military, to ease Pakistani concerns about getting squeezed by India on two borders", the journal said quoting US and Indian officials.

The move comes amid continued requests by Pakistan for an intercession by the US in Indo-Pak disputes, despite a longstanding resistance from India to any mediation by a foreign country.

Pakistan has long regarded Afghanistan as providing "strategic depth" or a buffer zone in a potential conflict with India, and does not want India to have a larger influence in the country.

"Current and former US officials said the discussion in Washington over how to approach India has intensified as Pakistan ratchets up requests that the US intercede in a series of continuing disputes," it said, adding the White House declined to comment on Obama's directive or on the debate within the administration over India policy.


I think we must mail a copy of India's declaration being a sovereign country to White House & a tutor to make Obama understand the meaning of the word "Sovereign" ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

"India must resolve its Pak conflicts for US to meet its goals in region"

Why don't US just sit at home & take care of its Domestic goals??
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
 
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USA has been interferring for the last few years if they have not improved ties by now what makes Obama think it will happen now? Obama needs to worry about winning in Afghanistan or exiting and saving face, not worrying if Pakistan is happy.
 
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nrj

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Even India wants to resolve the conflicts with Pak, we are the only suffering from this chaos. But it didn't happen in last 60years, what is this Obama going to do on it now?

Most probably it'll / it is intensifying the tensions & we'll see another war like Kargil...

Who is US to mediate between India & Pak? I am surprised to see US entertaining Pak's interest so widely!

India must gather its balls now & slap something harsh on US....
 

johnee

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^^^Well the root of the problem according to the US is Kashmir. India has held onto Kashmir for 60yrs(atleast the greater part of it), now maybe US(read Obama) plans to do something about it...
 

ajtr

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Pentagon for pressure on India to ease tension with Pakistan: WSJ


WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is actively lobbying for more pressure on New Delhi to ease tensions between India and Pakistan, the Wall Street Journal has reported. It has also revealed that US President Barack Obama had issued a secret directive to intensify diplomacy towards that aim and to win Islamabad's cooperation in Afghanistan.

Asserting that without détente between the two rivals, US efforts to win Pakistani cooperation in Afghanistan would suffer, the directive in December concluded that India must make resolving its tensions with Pakistan a priority for progress to be made on US goals in the region, the daily said citing "people familiar with its contents".

A debate continues within the administration over how hard to push India, which has long resisted outside intervention in the conflict with its neighbour. The Pentagon, in particular, has sought more pressure on New Delhi, the influential daily said citing US and Indian officials.

The journal cited current and former US officials as saying the discussion in Washington over how to approach India has intensified as Pakistan ratchets up requests that the US intercede in a series of continuing disputes.

The Obama administration has, so far, made few concrete demands of New Delhi, it said citing US and Indian officials.

According to US officials cited by the Journal, the only specific request has been to discourage India from getting more involved in training the Afghan military, to ease Pakistani concerns about getting squeezed by India on two borders.

The directive to top foreign-policy and national-security officials was summarised in a memo written by National Security Adviser James Jones at the end of the White House's three-month review of Afghan war policy in December, the daily said.

According to US and Indian officials cited by the Journal, the Pentagon has emerged in internal Obama administration debates as an active lobbyist for more pressure on India, with some officials already informally pressing Indian officials to take Pakistan's concerns more seriously.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been among the more vocal advocates of a greater Indian role, according to a US military official, encouraging New Delhi to be more "transparent" about its activities along the countries' shared border and to cooperate more with Pakistan.

US military officials were circumspect about what specific moves they would like to see from New Delhi, the Journal said.

But according to people who have discussed India policy with Pentagon officials, the ideas discussed in internal debates include reducing the number of Indian troops in Kashmir or pulling back forces along the border, it said.

The State Department has resisted such moves to pressure India, according to current and former US officials, insisting they could backfire, the Journal said.
 

ajtr

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US wants troop cut in Kashmir to win Afghan war

S Rajagopalan | Washington

To get Pak on its side, Washington mulls exerting pressure on India to reduce operations in Kabul

Reducing the number of Indian troops in Kashmir or pulling back forces along the border is among the “ideas” being discussed by the Pentagon in internal debates as part of measures to ensure that US efforts to win Pakistani cooperation for its Afghanistan operations do not suffer. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the Pentagon push for “more pressure” on New Delhi comes in the wake of President Barack Obama issuing a “secret directive” to his top officials to work hard for an Indo-Pak détente.

Citing people familiar with the contents of the directive, reportedly issued by Obama in December, the influential daily went on to say that its conclusion was that “India must make resolving its tensions with Pakistan a priority for progress to be made on US goals in the region”.

While the White House has declined to comment on the directive or on the debate within the administration over its India policy, the paper said the directive was “summarised in a memo written by National Security Adviser James Jones at the end of the White House’s three-month review of Afghan war policy in December”.

It is the Pentagon which is reportedly going all-out to call the shots in favour of Pakistan by making the case for increased pressure on New Delhi, while the State Department is resisting such moves, saying they could backfire.

“According to the US and Indian officials, the Pentagon has emerged in internal Obama Administration debates as an active lobbyist for more pressure on India, with some officials already informally pressing Indian officials to take Pakistan’s concerns more seriously,” the Journal reported.

It went on to cite a US military official as saying that Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the US Government’s prime interlocutor with the powerful Pakistani Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani, was for “encouraging New Delhi to be more ‘transparent’ about its activities along the countries’ shared border and to cooperate more with Pakistan”.

Although the Obama Administration has reportedly made “few concrete demands of New Delhi” thus far, the report quoted US officials as saying that “the only specific request has been to discourage India from getting more involved in training the Afghan military, to ease Pakistani concerns about getting squeesed by India on two borders”.

This is being seen against the Pakistan’s concerted bid to more or less get India out of Afghanistan even as New Delhi has categorically ruled out any scaling down of its presence in that country.

On the sensitive issue of reduction of Indian troops in Kashmir, the Journal reported: “In interviews, US military officials were circumspect about what specific moves they would like to see from New Delhi. But according to people who have discussed India policy with Pentagon officials, the ideas discussed in internal debates include reducing the number of Indian troops in Kashmir or pulling back forces along the border.”

Some US officials are said to believe that Islamabad will remain reluctant to wholeheartedly fight the Islamic militants based on its Afghan border “unless the sense of threat from India is reduced”.

One foreign diplomat who has reportedly discussed India's role with the Pentagon officials was quoted as saying: “They say, ‘The Pakistanis have this perception and you have to deal with the perception’.”

The 56-page note presented by the Pakistani Government to the Obama Administration ahead of the recent high-level US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue here “contained a litany of accusations against the Indian Government, and suggestions the US intercede on Pakistan’s behalf”, according to a US official.

However, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior officials have in their recent public comments ruled out any US intervention on Indo-Pak matters, whether over Kashmir or the water issue that was sought to be raised by Islamabad prominently during the Washington meeting.

State Department officials have been credited with the view that moves to pressure India at Pakistan’s bidding could backfire. A senior official involved in Indo-Pak issues has been quoted as saying that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has risked his political standing domestically by suggesting India would decouple talks on issues such as trade and travel from demands that Pakistan act more aggressively against terrorist groups, particularly Lashkar-e-Tayyeba.

“Our principal interest has always been to encourage the talks to resume, but we also understand where the Indians are coming from, which is that there has to be some progress on these bilateral counterterrorism issues,” the official was quoted as saying.
 

ajtr

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Obama’s insensitivity to India’s interests
…must be appropriately addressed
“[Can] Mr Obama really allow US-India relations to backslide into the mutual neglect last seen during the Cold War?” Sumit Ganguly wrote in the Wall Street Journal three weeks ago, “We may be about to find out.” Dr Ganguly warned the Obama administration that insensitivity to India’s interests will allow other powers to “step into the breach”. He repeated the warning in Newsweek, adding that India is annoyed by Obama.
Today the WSJ reports:
President Barack Obama issued a secret directive in December to intensify American diplomacy aimed at easing tensions between India and Pakistan, asserting that without détente between the two rivals, the administration’s efforts to win Pakistani cooperation in Afghanistan would suffer.
The directive concluded that India must make resolving its tensions with Pakistan a priority for progress to be made on U.S. goals in the region, according to people familiar with its contents.[WSJ]
The most polite thing that can be said is that Mr Obama made a stupid mistake. He appears to have learnt nothing from the unfortunate situation Richard Holbrooke, his special representative to the Af-Pak region, finds himself in.
While Mr Obama’s decision might well have been due to the political resultant of the interests of the various arms of the US government, it is consistent with his approach of demonstrating insensitivity to the interests of existing and potential allies in order to appease adversaries. This will be costly. President Hamid Karzai is providing the first taste of the consequences of such an approach. More will follow. (See, for instance, Jennifer Rubin’s post at Commentary magazine’s blog)
Mr Obama has put Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a political difficult position. The news of the White House “directive” making it into the public domain will, paradoxically, severely damage any prospect of New Delhi making things easier for the United States, even when such actions might be in India’s own interests. Who can say that Mr Obama doesn’t deserve to solely rely on partners such as the Pakistani army to help him win what is already called “Obama’s War”? Even Mr Karzai is returning favour by putting distance between himself and the United States.
So far, India’s signals of displeasure and annoyance have been quiet and behind the scenes. It is time to raise the temperature. Given that the UPA government in introducing some very important legislation in the current session of parliament, Dr Singh would do well to stay in New Delhi to see it through, leaving it to the foreign minister to attend the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, on his behalf. And since the bilateral relationship is mature and everything, New Delhi could let it be known that there’s no real hurry for Mr Obama to visit India.
 
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ajtr

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US can’t dictate policy to India

When US President Barack Obama had come to power last year, he had held out the hope of change in the way America conducted itself in the global arena. He had promised a radical shift in US policies, including foreign policies, something that must have weighed heavily on the minds of the members of the Nobel Committee before they declared him the winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace. Needless to say that all the talk about ‘change’ has proved to be nothing but bunkum. And with each passing day, the Obama Administration’s façade of newness gets eroded inch by inch. For, it is now becoming quite clear that the well-known American policy of putting its interests before that of others and going to any lengths to ensure this is very much inherent in the Obama Administration’s genome. Nothing exemplifies this better than Mr Obama’s ‘secret directive’ to his top officials to put pressure on India to resolve all issues with Pakistan in order to secure US objectives in Afghanistan. This despite American assertion that India is trustworthy, equal partner. But that trust, it seems, is being exploited by Washington, DC to the hilt. It has now emerged that in internal policy discussions, the Pentagon has been strongly advocating that pressure be put on India to force it to significantly reduce its troop presence from the Line of Control with Pakistan. This, the Pentagon believes, is something that has to be achieved, given Islamabad’s constant refrain that it is unable to commit troops to fight the Taliban till the time it is assured that New Delhi will not do a sneak attack while it is looking the other way. What it even more astounding is that Pentagon officials are open to the fact that the Pakistani claim is baseless, but are nonetheless willing to accept it on face value, given American compulsions in Afghanistan.

What makes the situation truly unfortunate is that the Government has been obediently following American directives at the cost of national interest. Congruent with Washington’s desire to see a roll-back of Indian Army forces along the LoC, recent months have seen significant reduction in troop numbers at the border. The price for this subservience is there for all to see. The past few weeks have seen a huge increase in terrorist activities in Jammu & Kashmir, as well as a visible step-up in infiltration bids, not surprising given the gaping holes in the security barrier that have been left behind by the troop withdrawal. And as the winter recedes, we can expect a bloody summer ahead. Unless the Government stops being a proxy of Washington, DC, the country’s interests stand to be severely compromised. Meanwhile, those in the Islamabad-Rawalpindi establishment have every reason to smile.
 

nrj

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What makes the situation truly unfortunate is that the Government has been obediently following American directives at the cost of national interest. Congruent with Washington’s desire to see a roll-back of Indian Army forces along the LoC, recent months have seen significant reduction in troop numbers at the border. The price for this subservience is there for all to see. The past few weeks have seen a huge increase in terrorist activities in Jammu & Kashmir, as well as a visible step-up in infiltration bids, not surprising given the gaping holes in the security barrier that have been left behind by the troop withdrawal. And as the winter recedes, we can expect a bloody summer ahead. Unless the Government stops being a proxy of Washington, DC, the country’s interests stand to be severely compromised. Meanwhile, those in the Islamabad-Rawalpindi establishment have every reason to smile.

Well, i don't agree on this part. As of now, GOI is not following US orders. The troop reduction process in JK & the US problem with Pak's request is totally irrelevant. GOI & JK Government is trying to reduce the army troops in JK since 2003 as a part of aim to create the sense of freedom by taking out heavy security off the schools, government building & to eventually stabilize the region's civil life.

County's interests are not at all compromised as of this moment. Indian media should stop making this hyping BS.

Its just coincidence reflecting now which should not be made capital to increase tensions & make life of JK citizens more miserable by continuing unnecessary army troops/ deploying more troops.

2009 has been the most peaceful year since 1989.

And moreover GOI & Army is just not sitting boozed......

Will watch Kashmir situation before further troop reduction: Home Secretary

No major pull out of troops from Kashmir: Army
 

nrj

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If the directive is secret, how the hell did it get to this forum?!?
The directive object is public & so on DFI...
The secret is the implementation of the directive including typical terms like When, Where & By whom, etc....
 

anoop_mig25

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^^^Well the root of the problem according to the US is Kashmir. India has held onto Kashmir for 60yrs(atleast the greater part of it), now maybe US(read Obama) plans to do something about it...
well johnee do u include Giligit and Balchistan as part of jammu and Kashmir (i my talking about undivided pre-partition) in it or u exclude them ,only including Azad Kashmir. india may be holding larder a part but isn`t Pakistan holding the gateways to central Asia and china
 

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