DATE=3/13/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=CLINTON SOUTH ASIA
NUMBER=5-45622
BYLINE=RAVI KHANNA
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: President Clinton goes to South Asia later
this week for talks with Indian, Pakistani, and
Bangladeshi leaders. V-O-A's Ravi Khanna takes a look
at the visit and the promise and problems it holds.
TEXT: President Clinton planned this visit for 1998 -
before the sudden nuclear tests by India and Pakistan.
The tests delayed the visit and the intervening time
has drastically changed the political situations in
both India and Pakistan, and also their bilateral
situation.
The tests have brought the nuclear non-proliferation
issue to the top of Mr. Clinton's agenda in New Delhi
and Islamabad.
To prepare for the visit, Indian foreign minister
Jaswant Singh and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe
Talbott have held at least 10-rounds of talks, but
without much progress on the non-proliferation issue.
While Washington wants India to not develop or deploy
nuclear weapons, India maintains it has to have a
credible minimum nuclear capability to deter attacks
on its sovereignty.
India believes the visit - the first by a U-S
President in 22-years - will be a turning point in
Indian-American relations. Mr. Talbott says the
nuclear issue will dominate Mr. Clinton's talks with
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
// TALBOTT ACT //
On the one hand I know President Clinton, when
he goes to India, will be committed to using the
trip itself and the aftermath of the trip to
make clear to the world, to the Indian people,
to the American people, and everybody else that
we really are turning a new page in the
relationship. But at the same time to
acknowledge that there is important unfinished
business and indeed significant differences
between us on the issue of nuclear weaponry and
the role nuclear weaponry should play in a
state's own security, in regional security, and
global security. This business is unfinished.
And there is another agenda item that we have
had in the dialogue from the very beginning,
which has to do with the India-Pakistan - and
there is a hyphen there - relationship and
dialogue.
// END ACT //
The hyphen Mr. Talbott was talking about has been one
of the most hotly debated issues before the visit.
One point of view at the State Department and Capitol
Hill is that India and Pakistan should not be coupled
together all the time and the relations with one
should not be seen through the prism of relations with
the other. Democratic congressman Gary Ackerman does
not mince words in explaining his view.
// ACKERMAN ACT //
De-linkage in my view does not connote ignoring
one side of the equation or the other. You
cannot resolve India's problems with Pakistan
without Pakistan, and you can not resolve
Pakistan's problems with India without India.
That does not mean that we can not use common
sense and view things from the reality that goes
on. We can be even-handed. But that does not
mean we have to treat them equally. Even-handed
means that you apply the same standards of
trying to accomplish that which you seek to have
done. If one is the aggressor and the other is
a victim, call the shot as you see it. I think
that is fair. You know fair is not always
equal, and I think that we have to keep that in
mind.
// END ACT //
U-S officials believe Mr. Clinton's delayed decision
to make a brief stop in Pakistan reflects that de-
linkage.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, President
Clinton said his move to include Pakistan is a
recognition that American interests and values will be
advanced if Washington maintains communication with
Pakistan, despite the October ouster of Nawaz Sharif's
democratic government by General Pervez Musharraf.
The president said it would be a grave mistake to see
his visit as an endorsement of the coup or the
military rulers. (SIGNED)
NEB/RK/RAE
13-Mar-2000 12:01 PM EDT (13-Mar-2000 1701 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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