NEW DELHI:
At a time when India and Pakistan are making ‘huge strides’ in normalizing their strained ties, top US diplomat appears to be muddying the water again by saying that Islamabad has not done what it can to stamp out terrorism.
On day 2 of her tirade against Pakistan, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “We look to the government of Pakistan to do more.”
She was speaking at a joint news conference with her Indian counterpart SM Krishna as she wrapped up an eight-day Asian trip that also took her to China and Bangladesh.
“It needs to make sure that its territory is not used as a launching pad for terrorist attacks anywhere, including inside Pakistan, because the great unfortunate fact is that terrorists in Pakistan have killed more than 30,000 Pakistanis,” she said.
Krishna also stressed “the need for stronger action from Pakistan on terrorism, including on bringing to justice the perpetrators of the Mumbai terrorist attacks”.
New Delhi has blamed Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group for the Mumbai attacks. The United States last month offered a $10 million reward for information leading to the conviction of Hafiz Saeed, the founder of LeT.
“Recent attacks in Kabul highlight once again the need for elimination of terrorist sanctuaries in the neighbourhood and the need for stronger action from Pakistan on terrorism, including on bringing to justice the perpetrators of (the) Mumbai terrorist attack,” Krishna said.
On Monday, Clinton pressed Pakistan over the presence of Hafiz Saeed. Speaking in Kolkata, Clinton had said that she was ‘well aware’ that Islamabad had not yet taken steps to help secure Saeed’s conviction.
To a question, she said the US had reason to believe that Hafiz Saeed was one of the ‘principal architects’ of the Mumbai attacks. “We have issued this reward. We had earlier been successful. This is not unique. This is not a special case,” she said.
Pakistan’s response
Incensed by Secretary Clinton’s comments, a spokesperson for the Foreign Office said that Pakistan’s determination to fight militancy ‘cannot be doubted’. “We have made numerous sacrifices that are unparalleled,” Moazzam Ali Khan said.
Iran-India
Secretary Clinton also said that her country looked to India as a partner in the wide international effort to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and also to see progress by India in reducing Iranian oil imports.
“There are ties of culture and religion. We have a strong intent for the peaceful and negotiated settlement of issues. Our stand on this has been clear and consistent,” Krishna said.
(Additional input from AGENCIES)
Published in The Express Tribune, May 9th, 2012.
COMMENTS (7)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
@Truth: i agree with you..Traditionally Iran has always been a strong ally of India. no matter which government comes at New Delhi, pro-Iran lobby is pretty strong for them to listen to US..as a matter of fact, a large Iranian trade delegation was in Delhi at the same time Clinton was in Kolkota..Political-Social-Economic relations between India-Iran are too strong for US to mess around.
Ms. Clinton I feel sorry for your failed visit to India since you achieved nothing out of it. By pointing fingers at Pakistan to make India happy and then later on asking India to drop oil imports from Iran to somehow damage Iran's oil exports, you drew nothing except more hatred. Try again maa'm.
@Falcon: "Playing as a good cop with India will convey the idea that US is among the only well wishers of India and secondly, it will also prime the conditions for further opening of Indian Markets to U.S. goods & services."
I usually enjoy reading your posts even when I disagree. This one I simply do not understand. So if US plays good cop, who is playing the bad cop. How can they make India think it is the only well wisher when India has good relations not just with US ut EU, GCC, ASEAN, BRICS grouping, Japan, South Korea and Australia? Also are you suggesting that Russia is aligned with China and against India? Nothing could be further from the truth. India and Russia have historically had excellent ties and just a couple of months back head of all BRICS nations met in India.
You do more over salalah incident.
Whats wrong in it. After all it is Legitimate and Just. To draw an analogy, when a student is under performing in class, naturally the teacher would ask the student to do more, put in more effort. I/ No self respecting indivisual sees it any other way. Rgds P
Mrs. Hilary Clinton and Krishna both of you are insisting and emphasizing on Pakistan to do more.Methinks both of you have forgotten that Pakistan has done a lot more than your expectations and now this is your turn to do more to eliminate/uproot the causes of spreading and raising terrorism by withdrawing the brutal and cruel forces from Afghanistan and Indian Occupied Kashmir first voluntarily because just due to excessive US' practically interference in Afghanistan's and Pakistan's highly confidential matters a lot of innocent people have been killed by the drones and the forces just on the name of fake terrorism and no-doubt the terrorists have been also killed because the terrorists are handful.
There is a good probability that US does not want relations between Pakistan and India to normalize too much, since it already feels that it is loosing support in the region by formation of a China-Russia block. Playing as a good cop with India will convey the idea that US is among the only well wishers of India and secondly, it will also prime the conditions for further opening of Indian Markets to U.S. goods & services.