US likely to stay clear of Kashmir, feels South Block

United States President Bill Clinton’s meeting with the prime ministers of India and Pakistan and his message to the United Nations clearly indicate that the US will maintain its position that the Kashmir dispute should be resolved bilaterally.

Senior officials at the ministry of external affairs in New Delhi point out that after Clinton met Prime Ministers I K Gujral and Nawaz Sharief on Monday, the US appeared not to have offered to mediate, if required, to resolve the prickly Kashmir dispute, something it had done before. The officials note that this must have disappointed Islamabad which had lobbied intensely with the Clinton administration to exert pressure on Gujral to make conciliatory gestures on the Kashmir imbroglio.

Noting the US's unwillingness to change its stand on South Asia, officials feel there could be many reasons:

1. Pakistan’s failure to clinch the Afghan civil war in favour of the American oil companies exporting natural gas from Turkmenistan. The Unicol/Delta combine appears to appears to have been annoyed at Islamabad's failure to live up to its tall promises and refused to bring pressure on the Clinton administration.

2. The capture of Pakistani terrorists like Mir Kamal Kansi who had killed two CIA employees has considerably tarnished Islamabad's image in American eyes.

3. The total breakdown of law and order and regular acts of violence against innocent citizens presents Pakistan in a bad light to American investors. According to reports from Washington, Pakistan is no longer considered a safe haven for investment purposes.

4. Influential American academics feel that Nawaz Sharief hounding former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto on corruption charges is creating problems for the country's nascent democracy and encouraging the military to step in.

5. Lastly, Bhutto, leader of the Pakistani Opposition in the National Assembly, had publicly complained about the violation of human rights in her country, thereby conveying the impression that all is not well in Pakistan.

All these factors in a way set the stage for Nawaz Sharief’s meeting with Clinton and foreign affairs analysts believe the meeting will not achieve much in Pakistan's favour.

According to South Block officials, a veteran US diplomat, who had served in South Asia, had remarked that Pakistan "always misses the bus at the last moment through its own making, and the latest Nawaz Sharief-Clinton meeting is one more such example."

They stressed that all the media hype about a "dead issue" like Kashmir would evoke little response from an American perspective, nor would it garner much sympathy or generate a favourable climate in the international community.