Military

DATE=3-5-04

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=CQ POWELL / SOUTH ASIA (L-ONLY)

NUMBER=2-313866

BYLINE=DAVID GOLLUST

DATELINE=STATE DEPARTMENT

VOICED AT:

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INTRO: Secretary of State Colin Powell will visit India, Pakistan and Afghanistan on a week-long South Asian trip later this month. He'll lend support to revived peace talks between India and Pakistan and discuss reconstruction and counter-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan. V-O-A's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

TEXT: It will be Mr. Powell's first South Asian mission since 2002, when India and Pakistan had massed troops along their mutual border in a confrontation that U-S officials feared could lead to a nuclear exchange.

But the two sides began withdrawing forces under U-S-led mediation later that year, and now have embarked on an ambitious peace process that includes talks as early as this May on the status of Kashmir, the divided Himalayan region that spawned the 2002 crisis and two conventional wars in the past.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli announced the trip, due to begin March 14th, at a news briefing. He said Mr. Powell will discuss the peace initiative in both New Delhi and Islamabad but also the intensive and close bilateral relationships the United States has with both South Asian powers:

///Ereli actuality///

It's important to recognize, I think, the important forward movement that both countries have made in addressing issues between them. So that will definitely figure on the agenda of our discussions in both India and Pakistan but it will, by no means overshadow the other very, very important bilateral issues that we have with each one separately.

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Officials say Mr. Powell can be expected to press the Pakistani government of President Pervez Musharraf to do all it can to uproot the nuclear technology network run by Pakistan's top nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has admitted leaking nuclear weapons secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea.

The Bush administration has avoided criticizing the pardon extended by President Musharraf to Mr. Khan, a Pakistani national hero, but has said the pardon is conditional on further cooperation in the case.

A U-S diplomat who spoke to reporters here said the A-Q Khan affair shows how porous the international anti-proliferation regime is, and that Mr. Powell will stress the need to "tighten it up," and for Pakistan to share information about Mr. Khan's activities with international organizations.

In New Delhi, Mr. Powell will discuss implementation of a strategic partnership agreement reached with India in January, under which the United States will expand nuclear and space technology cooperation with India in return for stronger Indian action to help block the spread of dangerous weapons.

Mr. Powell will discuss Afghan reconstruction efforts with President Hamed Karzai and other officials in Kabul as a prelude to his attending the international conference on the same subject at the end of this month in Berlin.

In both Kabul and Islamabad, he can be expected to discuss stepped up military efforts to dislodge remnants of the Taleban and al-Qaida from the Afghan-Pakistan border region. (Signed)

NEB/DAG/RH