External affairs minister SM Krishna denies that involvement in Afghanistan is intended to encircle Pakistan.
India on Tuesday pressed the United States to check aid to Pakistan even as the Obama administration prepared to triple assistance to Islamabad to $1.5 billion a year for five years.
Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari will meet Barack Obama in New York this week, the topic of aid expected to be the focus of talks. The American media said US officials are debating how much of the assistance should go directly to the Pakistani government, which has been widely accused of corruption.
Foreign minister SM Krishna said India felt “vindicated” after former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf said recently that his country had diverted some aid — which the US gives the South Asian nation as funding for the war on terror — to bolster defences against India.
“We have always been cautioning friends, [among them] the US, that please, please for heaven’s sake make sure that the aid you are giving to Pakistan is not directed and misappropriated to be used against India, a friend of yours,” Krishna said on Tuesday.
He told reporters he will emphasise the point when he meets US secretary of state Hillary Clinton on Friday. He will also voice India’s disappointment over Pakistan not prosecuting Lashkar-e-Taiba founder and 26/11 mastermind Hafeez Saeed despite the six dossiers of proof given by India.
During talks this week, Indian officials stated that terror threats emanating from Pakistan hadn’t diminished. Foreign secretary Nirupama Rao, who met her counterpart William Burns and US deputy secretary of state James B Steinberg, shared with them India’s assessment that the level of infiltration in Kashmir from the Pakistani side had spiked since May.
It’s amazing how low expectations are for the India-Pakistan meeting on Saturday in New York. Krishna is sceptical about the outcome of his meeting with Pakistan foreign secretary Shah Mehmood Qureshi. Krishna told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that India wants more decisive action. “We want Hafeez Saeed to be tried for the Mumbai attack.
Saeed has been put under house arrest for certain inflammatory speeches he made in some part of Pakistan. According to the six dossiers we provided to the Pakistani government, Saeed was the chief conspirator in the attack on Mumbai. They are trying to camouflage the whole idea to suit themselves. India cannot be lulled into some kind of satisfaction that they are proceeding against him. We can see through the game.”
Krishna also dismissed suggestions that India’s growing involvement in Afghanistan is intended to encircle Pakistan, a fear prevalent in some circles in Pakistan.
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