U.S. Envoy Says India Is Not Being Pressured
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Thursday, April 9, 2009
NEW DELHI, April 8 -- U.S. special envoy Richard C. Holbrooke said Wednesday that "India, Pakistan and the U.S. face a common threat" posed by Islamist extremist groups. But Holbrooke, in New Delhi for meetings with top Indian officials after visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan, denied asking India to resume its dialogue with Pakistan.
There has been growing concern in New Delhi that the Obama administration will try to push India to make peace with Pakistan as the latter confronts an increasingly active Islamist insurgency.
"We did not come here to ask the Indians to do anything," said Holbrooke, who has been assigned by Obama to lead diplomatic efforts in the region. "We came here to inform them about our trip, as we always do, and to get their views."
The visit was Holbrooke's first since Obama announced a new strategy for the region that involves increasing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and providing more military and development aid to Pakistan.
"There is a great deal of history in this region. And we respect that history. Everyone has their own memories, and there have been great traumas," Holbrooke said. Indian politicians and commentators have in recent days expressed unease over the possibility that the United States could urge India to lower tensions with Pakistan to allow the latter to concentrate on its fight against radical groups along its western border with Afghanistan.
Holbrooke was accompanied by Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and met with India's national security adviser and foreign secretary.
India has said that talks with Pakistan cannot resume until the government in Islamabad takes concerted action against groups that engineered the deadly attacks in Mumbai in November, which left more than 170 people dead, including six Americans.
Last week, Obama had urged the two nuclear-armed neighbors, which have fought three wars, to start talking.
"We know it is going to be difficult, but the national security of all three countries is clearly at stake," Holbrooke said. "We can't settle issues like Afghanistan and many other issues without India's full involvement."
