Tracking Number: 458289
Title: "Ambassador Simons Speech on US-Pakistan Relations." Comments by US Ambassador to Pakistan Thomas Simons in Islamabad regarding the evolving US-Pakistan relationship in
the New World Order. (960923)
Date: 19960923
Text:
*NEA107
09/23/96 TEXT: AMBASSADOR SIMONS SPEECH ON U.S.-PAKISTAN RELATIONS (New, post-Cold War relationship is "work in progress") (7000)
Islamabad -- The new, post-Cold War relationship between the United States and Pakistan "is a work in progress," says U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Thomas W. Simons, Jr.
In a speech to the Association of Retired Ambassadors in Islamabad on September 22, titled "The Evolving American Approach to World Affairs and The Emerging Pakistan-U.S. Relationship: Works in Progress," Ambassador Simons said "Pakistanis and Americans have been together in one or another official relationship for almost half a century now, and many of us are also bound by strong personal ties."
Simons noted that this relationship "has been a turbulent one, with many ups and downs, and with a rough balance of understandings and misunderstandings. There are mixed feelings on both sides. But friendship, I believe, still dominates on both sides." The friendly familiarity between the people of the United States and Pakistan, he said, "is an important asset as our countries work for an improved relationship grounded in old and new values and common interests.
"Moreover, our two countries have demonstrated a mature ability to work patiently through difficulties and to move beyond them. Beginning with Prime Minister Bhutto's visit to Washington in April 1995, our two governments have worked hard, at some political risk, to rectify past mistakes and put in place the elements of a new and healthy relationship," he said.
Simons called the common commitment of both countries to an expanding role for the private sector in the economy and in economic relations with others "a major asset to our overall relationship."
However, one item which "was a large and important part of our old agenda, and it will remain a large and important part of the new one as well," the Ambassador emphasized, is nuclear and missile proliferation. The vast majority of Americans, he said, "see proliferation as a threat not simply to their security, but to the security of the entire, increasingly interdependent planet.
"Pakistan agrees with the goal of nuclear and missile nonproliferation, but it views its own security interests in ways that ensure that our two countries will continue to disagree on how best to pursue and achieve that shared objective," Simons said. He added, ..."the American commitment to resist nuclear and missile proliferation is expressed in law, in a whole series of laws which every American administration is and will be obligated to apply diligently. Over the objections of every administration since its passage, one law applies specifically to Pakistan -- the Pressler amendment."
Simons noted that the effort over the past 18 months to pass the Brown amendment and build a broader and better relationship with Pakistan has led the U.S. "to take a longer, closer look at the factors underlying this built-in tension in our relationship. We have begun to focus on the causes, as well as the symptoms. And it will come as no surprise to you to hear that the causes are rooted in the ongoing confrontation between Pakistan and India.
"Pakistan and India will themselves define their agenda for negotiation -- no one else can -- but they will serve their own interests well if they make it a broad one. Their conflict runs so deep and has gone on for so long that the list of issues that cry out for negotiated progress is a long one. On most issues the two countries have nowhere to go but up, to the benefit of both sides...," he said. "I would urge all responsible and thoughtful people, like the members of this audience, to take another look at the values of the other side."
On the issue of Kashmir, the ambassador said "the U.S. position ... has not changed. We continue to believe that the Kashmir issue must be resolved peacefully through bilateral negotiations between Pakistan and India, taking into account the interests and desires of the people of Kashmir."
Simons stressed that the United States wishes to be helpful on the issue of Kashmir and other issues on the Pakistan-India agenda, "as and if conditions exist which will permit us to be helpful."
Following is the official text of Ambassador Simons' remarks, provided by USIS Islamabad:
(Begin text)
Introduction
I am honored by the opportunity to be with you today. It is a good moment to reflect on our important relationship, and I can think of no better group with which to share such reflections than Pakistan's Association of Retired Ambassadors. I have practiced diplomacy in the interests of my country for a third of this century. As a group, the members of your association embody centuries of diplomatic service in the interests of Pakistan. And you continue that service in retirement through this forum for serious discussion of major international issues affecting your country. Our bilateral relationship falls in that category, and it is about the United States and about Pakistan in the post-Cold War era that I address you today.
In the United States we are in the midst of our presidential election campaign. Beneath all their hurly-burly, presidential election campaigns are a quadrennial exercise in stock-taking on domestic and foreign policy in our democracy. In choosing a President to lead us for the next four years and a Congress to work with the President, we Americans redefine our objectives. We make judgments on the feasibility of those objectives and the competence of those who will pursue them on our behalf. We set directions for our country's future.
For its part, Pakistan is approaching the 50th anniversary of its national independence. The governments since 1988 have set the longevity record for democratic rule in your history. Beneath the tumult of your political landscape, therefore, it is perhaps a moment for taking stock and reflection among Pakistanis too.
Here today, I feel that I am not only among friends, but among professional colleagues. All of us have wrestled intellectually with the complex web of relationships that bind nations to one another. So I know you will be kind as I try my hand as a diplomat to talk about my nation's approach to world affairs, as an old "Cold Warrior" to consider what may be learned from America's long conflict with the Soviet Union, and as an outside observer and guest here to point out some noteworthy features of Pakistan's relationship with the U.S.
Our countries have much in common. Both countries were conceived of, and founded as, communities of values shared by people speaking different languages, people with diverse ethnic and geographic origins. And both countries have worked hard at preserving a democratic way of life in which the rule of law and basic human rights are respected. Over the past fifty years, both the U.S. and Pakistan have faced one central conflict in the foreign policy arena, compared to which other considerations were secondary. Americans tried to manage our conflict, and I believe we succeeded; you have tried and are trying to manage yours. My hope here today is that by sharing some thoughts on our experience of the Cold War and our conflict with Soviet communism, as well as mentioning lessons we have learned about conflict management in other areas over the past half century, I may be able to stimulate discussion and creative thinking which may be useful in managing your central conflict.
Please note that what I have to say will not be advice. I have not been here very long and still have much to learn about Pakistan, and it is for Pakistanis rather than outsiders to determine what Pakistan is and where it wishes to go as a nation. As you approach your 50th birthday, it is for you to determine the shape of your next 50 years.
I have noticed that there is widespread discouragement in Pakistan today, and that can take on a troublesome life of its own. Sometimes a longer perspective can help. Granted, Pakistan has problems -- political, economic, security, and infrastructural problems that can seem incredibly daunting. But frankly they pale in insignificance beside the problems your country has already faced and overcome, beginning with a birth trauma that would have extinguished a lesser nation.
You have such a rich legacy to build upon. As I was drafting these remarks on Quaid-e-Azam's death day, the week before last, I vividly recalled standing with my parents on a balcony at the corner of Bunder and Garden Roads in Karachi forty-eight years before. That was where the American Embassy then stood. A vast procession followed the Quaid's body toward the temporary shrine where his Mazar now stands. I had never seen so many people in my life.
They were soaked in sorrow. I felt their grief and shared it; I share it today. But their grief was the obverse of their hope for the new country their leader had left them -- something that I also sensed and shared. I continue to believe in Pakistan's national future, in its capacity to secure freer, more prosperous, and fuller lives for its people.
As an observer of good will, representing a country which wishes Pakistan well, I hope it will not be taken amiss if I venture to reflect aloud on what I have seen and learned as a diplomat over the years. My observations fall under three rubrics: the evolving American approach to world affairs; the emerging U.S.-Pakistan relationship; and the prospects for managing the deep tensions that afflict in the subcontinent.
I. The evolving American approach to world affairs
Since I am freshly back from Washington, it is perhaps appropriate to begin with the current state of U.S. foreign policy -- where it's coming from, where it's going.
Many of you have experienced and are familiar with the American approach to world affairs during nearly half a century of Cold War. In practice, that approach had many layers and facets, and it evolved in important ways over time. But its main features were remarkably constant and predictable; they were understood and supported by the vast majority of Americans decade after decade.
Let me recall those central features.
The American approach to world affairs during the Cold War, and since, has been rooted in the perception that -- large and resource-rich as we are, and secure as we have been behind two oceans and two peaceful land borders for most of our history -- the United States could not sustain its sovereignty and its basic values over time if it were alone in a world of hostile powers with opposing values.
Values are the bedrock of America. The core public values which define the American polity are democracy and the market. Moreover, Americans see these values as deeply and irrevocably interrelated: the principles of democracy cannot be preserved without the energy of the market, and the freedom of the marketplace cannot be preserved except through democratic politics.
Only the market can produce a mass of people with a vested interest in living within impersonal rules that apply equally to all. Only the free competition of interests and the capacity to adjudicate them within agreed rules permits large numbers of men and women to support the sharp fluctuations in short-term economic returns which the market sometimes generates.
What democracy and the market mean in particular, what their limits are, how far they can and must be pursued are endlessly debated. But as core values -- the very substance of political debate and competition -- they are supported by almost all Americans.
Democracy and the market also provide America's touchstone in world affairs -- for choosing what to resist and what to pursue, for defining adversaries and choosing like-minded partners.
There are two main problems with this approach.
First, democracy and the market are concepts hard to pin down precisely at home, and even harder to define outside America's borders. Each society develops its own specific versions of these values; even governments notoriously resistant to democracy and free markets call themselves democratic.
As a result, anxious debate accompanies the American search for partnerships based on common values -- debate over which countries truly share these values and which do not.
The second and more serious problem is that since values are often expressed in absolutes, it is hard for a value-based policy to define limited objectives. We all know that in the real world public policy must set limited objectives for itself if it is to be successful at all. No nation, not even the sole remaining super power, has the power simply to impose its values outside its borders, even if it wished to do so. Indeed, America's active participation in world affairs and its constant search for like-minded partners are based on an accurate understanding that it never could.
This balancing act -- establishing limited objectives for value-based policies, objectives which a democratic electorate can accept and support, and which can then be pursued realistically in relations with other sovereign states -- is the essential dilemma for a modern democratic state.
In a pure or philosophical sense, balancing absolute values with limited goals is impossible, and thus the tension between them marks every U.S. foreign policy process. In a vital, practical sense, however, this was done during much of the Cold War period because of the specific nature of Soviet power and the threat it posed. The character of our adversary gave American foreign policy its familiar consistency throughout those decades.
The Soviet Union which emerged from World War II was an ideological state pursuing values opposed to the core values of Americans. The Soviets believed that democracy and the market as America understood them were indeed interrelated, but represented a supreme evil for mankind. A great power with a fixed geographic location, the Soviet Union therefore defined the United States as hostile and pursued its own values energetically and ruthlessly.
In return, postwar Americans quickly came to view the Soviet Union as a mortal threat both to American values and to related American interests in world affairs. The result was a familiar image: two tremendous powers locked, eyeball to eyeball, in conflict and in confrontation, each holding the other in check.
Then, in the second decade of the Cold War, the U.S. ran up against the limited objectives dilemma, the problem of actually accomplishing something on the world stage besides mutual stalemate. The challenge became how to negotiate limited agreements with our mortal enemy, agreements which were consistent with our values and long-term objectives, and therefore capable of mustering political support both at home and from our foreign partners.
The solution was to introduce geostrategic considerations, Henry Kissinger's so-called realpolitik, into U.S. foreign policy formulation as a tactical principle. This tactic did not mean that our policies ceased to be value-based, but in practical terms U.S. policy in the 1970's and 1980's was able to develop a definition of American goals which brought values and the pursuit of strategic interests into harmony. In turn, this development permitted the United States to negotiate with the Soviet Union without calling into question either the U.S. commitment to core values or partnerships with like-minded nations.
When the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991, the geostrategic element in U.S. policy became debatable all over again. The debate began immediately and continues today. Whatever the specific issue, it is the same basic debate over the proper balance between core values and properly selected limited objectives in American foreign policy. In the post-Cold War world, where the U.S. no longer has a powerful ideological adversary in one large place, this means that the U.S. approach to foreign affairs is changing.
To be sure, not everything will change. We recognize that policy continuity and consistency are themselves assets. We will continue to be active in world affairs, and to seek the partnership of like-minded nations to resist and overcome threats to our values and interests. We will continue to cherish democracy and the market as the values most relevant over the long term to determining which partnerships we seek. Military power will remain important to us, as will shaping it to reduce both confrontation and threats to our security. The United States, in other words, will remain in most ways as hard or as easy to deal with as it ever was. Much will be familiar.
Much, however, is also changing -- perhaps evolving is the better word. Since we are dealing with a process in a democracy that is still underway, I will not predict any final outcome, but certain interconnected trends are already quite clear.
We, along with our allies and our former enemies, have moved toward a definition of security which is both comprehensive and indivisible. By "comprehensive" I mean that we have come to recognize that tanks, planes, and even nuclear weapons do not in themselves suffice to provide a nation or group of nations with true security. By true security, I mean durable stability. This does not mean the status quo. Rather, it means the search for a common framework of shared objectives and practices within which each nation and people can pursue security and growth at peace with itself and the rest of the world. We believe that framework will rest on several pillars: respect for human rights; the rule of law; economic prosperity and high employment; respect for the environment, both internally and transnationally; establishing and maintaining good neighborly relations. It is ironic, but also encouraging, to hear former Soviet diplomats who once denounced western human rights concerns as "unacceptable interference in our internal affairs" now acting as ardent proponents of human rights on behalf of the Russian minorities in countries that were once part of the Soviet bloc.
By "indivisible" I mean that we have come to understand that true security in one nation enhances the security of all; insecurity or instability is a threat to all of us. When one country oppresses a minority group or disregards basic human rights or allows unemployment to skyrocket, the resulting conflict risks spreading like a forest fire to engulf the entire region. We have reached these understandings in a series of multilateral negotiating fora that were originally conceived for very limited ends: disarmament, human rights, or what have you. From organizations such as the OSCE, a common, cooperative culture for dealing with these basic aspects of security is beginning to emerge.
Today, we are also beginning to face up to new threats, which are also transnational in nature. To mention but two with which you are familiar: we have the scourge of international terrorism and the plague of illicit drugs. Tackling these problems demands a cooperative rather than a confrontational approach; they can only be solved through a definition of security which includes the notion that what enhances one nation's security can also enhance that of its neighbors. Security is not a zero-sum game.
Many of these new issues are difficult to manage, so developing the new U.S. national security agenda will be a messy, inelegant, at times maddening process for America's partners in world affairs. But that inelegance should be familiar to our friends and partners, and for those interested in working with the United States, the agenda itself will have something of the shape I have described.
The United States will continue to be energetically and actively engaged in world affairs. Americans recognize that without such engagement we cannot preserve our security, our liberties, or our economic well being. We will continue to resist threats, to seek partnerships in resisting those threats, and to promote agreed international structures that make it easier to curb, reduce, and eliminate those threats. We will continue to seek partnerships based on common values, beginning with commitment to democratic governance and market-based economic management, and on shared interest in facing emerging global threats together.
II. The emerging U.S.-Pakistan relationship
As an official American I would like to offer a few thoughts on today's and tomorrow's relationship between the United States and Pakistan, thoughts which may be useful to the many Pakistanis who believe that this relationship is important to their country. Once again, I shall be dealing with a work in progress. Since the post-Cold War realities are just taking shape, so too is our new relationship.
Our relationship has been a turbulent one, with many ups and downs, and with a rough balance of understandings and misunderstandings. There are mixed feelings on both sides. But friendship, I believe, still dominates on both sides. Pakistanis and Americans have been together in one or another official relationship for almost half a century now, and many of us are also bound by strong personal ties. Nearly twelve thousand young Pakistanis are currently studying in the U.S. We can still shock, and occasionally offend, one another, but I doubt that we could really surprise each other much. That friendly familiarity is an important asset as our countries work for an improved relationship grounded in old and new values and common interests.
Moreover, our two countries have demonstrated a mature ability to work patiently through difficulties and to move beyond them. Beginning with Prime Minister Bhutto's visit to Washington in April 1995, our two governments have worked hard, at some political risk, to rectify past mistakes and put in place the elements of a new and healthy relationship. The current U.S. administration saw the Pressler amendment as an unfair burden on the relationship and supported the Brown amendment to help rectify the situation. With vigorous public debate and political courage on both sides, we are more or less on track, up from the recent past and toward a better future. The question now is what shape to give that future.
We share an impressive range of common values. Both countries were founded in the name of values -- public values and private values -- and both carry forward that heritage. They also bear the burdens of that heritage, for in both countries the effort to exemplify values in public institutions that work is difficult and ongoing. Both countries have an ideological origin, both seek national unity through that ideology, and both are committed to integrating their core values into public life.
Democracy, like all the enterprises of man, remains forever unfinished, always a work in progress. For 220 years America has been experimenting with democracy. Our democracy will always take on special forms and will always be less than perfect. Each generation will struggle to maintain it, to adapt it to new conditions, to perfect it. So too in Pakistan, where democracy has its own unique history, its special shape, and its own particular imperfections.
Democracy has registered significant achievements in Pakistan and created noteworthy institutions and traditions. The press is largely free; there is lively and wide-ranging debate on all manner of public issues. Laws provide for freedom of association and religious belief and practice, private property and fundamental human rights. The rule of law, a precondition for democratic development everywhere, has roots in Pakistan that reach back to pre-independence days.
There have now been three successive governments issuing from substantially free and fair elections. It is true that there are limits to the law and derelictions of enforcement. But respect for legal and constitutional norms is on the increase, democratic development has been impressive, and Pakistanis are working to nurture and expand it, so that it can survive and prosper. I see this summer's passionate and very lively debates in domestic politics as a sign of a healthy political life and not its opposite.
Market development is also always a work in progress. No economy in history has ever been entirely free. There must always be a substantial role in economic management for government, to meet politically defined public needs that the private sector is unable or unwilling to satisfy. It is always a question of striking a proper, socially acceptable, and efficient balance between the roles of government and the private sector. In any society, equity and growth -- and as an American I would say democracy as well -- can move forward together only if that balance is struck. It is also a shifting balance. Every generation must strike it anew, so that the effort to find it never ends.
The common commitment of both countries to an expanding role for the private sector in the economy and in economic relations with others is a major asset to our overall relationship. It also provides a wealth of very specific opportunities for expanding trade and investment between Pakistan and the U.S. They are primarily in the private sector, and I am happy to say they are being seized with the support and encouragement of both governments. The U.S. remains Pakistan's no. 1 export market and its no. 2 source of imports.
American businesses remain eager to engage in Pakistan and the U.S. government is committed to supporting that engagement. The Bilateral Business Development Forum we hope to have up and running by the end of the year should facilitate further progress. With commitment and creativity on all sides, I see a bright future for expanding bilateral trade and investment, which can only hasten progress in the overall relationship.
Democracy and free markets: now more than ever, Americans are defining the partnerships we seek in world affairs in terms of just those two criteria. Americans feel less comfortable than ever in the company of those who do not share those values. We increasingly see our security interests best defended in the community of nations which demonstrate their commitment to democracy and market-based economic management in deed as well as in word. Consistent implementation of Pakistan's commitment to expanding and deepening democracy and market-oriented economic arrangements will therefore be a critical component in our new relationship.
Within that structure, we are also developing an agenda for cooperation on the global issues which will increasingly determine the direction of U.S. foreign policy. Not all of these issues -- human rights, terrorism, narcotics, good economic management, good neighborly relations, protecting the environment -- are of equal interest or urgency for Pakistanis and Americans. Nor will our governments be able to find common ground with respect to each. But I am convinced that the interests of both countries will be best served by expanding our productive cooperation on many of them. Together they constitute a broad agenda which will make it easier for us to move forward where we agree, and to maintain a relationship beneficial to both countries even when we do not.
With all these thorny problems, whenever American experience and expertise can help and is sought, we make it available. We understand that these are not easy issues, that these threats are difficult to combat, and that combating them can take time. Our experience has also taught us that with commitment and creativity they can be effectively managed. These issues taken together constitute the new part of the emerging U.S.-Pakistan agenda.
Nuclear and missile proliferation was a large and important part of our old agenda, and it will remain a large and important part of the new one as well. The vast majority of Americans considered proliferation a threat to their security during the Cold War, and consider it an even greater threat to their security now that the Cold War is over. They see it as a threat not simply to their security, but to the security of the entire, increasingly interdependent planet.
Pakistan agrees with the goal of nuclear and missile nonproliferation, but it views its own security interests in ways that ensure that our two countries will continue to disagree on how best to pursue and achieve that shared objective. Those disagreements will not disappear from our bilateral relations. Moreover, the American commitment to resist nuclear and missile proliferation is expressed in law, in a whole series of laws which every American administration is and will be obligated to apply diligently. Over the objections of every administration since its passage, one law applies specifically to Pakistan -- the Pressler amendment; others apply to all governments or to acts which Pakistan and other countries may feel obliged to take in the interest of their own security. All these laws are complicated. But they are all legally binding, and all will be scrupulously applied by this and any subsequent American administration. On this agenda item, our relations will therefore remain problematic.
At the same time, the effort over the past eighteen months to pass the Brown amendment and build a broader and better relationship with Pakistan has led us to take a longer, closer look at the factors underlying this built-in tension in our relationship. We have begun to focus on the causes, as well as the symptoms. And it will come as no surprise to you to hear that the causes are rooted in the ongoing confrontation between Pakistan and India.
III. The Pakistan-India dispute
In one sense the United States has always been concerned about the discord between Pakistan and India and its consequences. The conflict has drained resources in two developing countries whom we wish well. It threatens continually to escalate into armed confrontation and has boiled over into war three times. The interest in both countries to develop, field and deliver nuclear weapons is deeply alarming to a generation of Americans raised in the nuclear shadow of the Cold War. Although neither country professes any desire to begin armed strife, and although there has been no war for a quarter century now, it worries Americans to observe that should one occur, it risks going nuclear.
The end of the Cold War has nevertheless given both new urgency and form to our concerns. It has allowed us to step back and take a fresh look at our experiences in the Cold War and the related experiences of many others in resolving various regional disputes -- Southern Africa, Northern Ireland, the Middle East all come to mind -- to see what lessons might be learned with regard to the confrontation on the subcontinent. This search for potentially useful analogies is ongoing -- it has produced no changes of policy or startling new conclusions, beyond an awareness of the need for greater and more sustained U.S. attention to the region. But some elements are beginning to emerge, and I would like to share some thoughts on them with you.
The parties to every dispute begin with the assumption, and remain attached to the belief, that theirs is a unique case, defined by absolutely special factors, so that no lessons learned elsewhere can apply. That belief in turn justifies the demand that outsiders have to accept a given party's going-in position in order to be helpful.
In other words, If you are a true partner and friend, you will stand with us on this point and then the other side will fold its tents and slink away. But we do not accept the premise. Experience, we believe, teaches us that conflict situations share certain general characteristics, and that the lessons learned from the successful management of one dispute can be adapted and applied to attempts to manage others.
Second, experience tells us that defining a broad agenda for negotiation is more effective than limiting an agenda to one or two core issues, to which all the others are linked. Once an overall rationale for negotiation which enjoys political support is in place, the parties will of course determine which issues are more or less important to them, and define degrees of linkage among them as they go along. But if they are to maintain political support for the whole enterprise, they must include issues which are clearly in their interest to negotiate successfully, regardless of the degree of progress on other issues. Then, bringing the whole negotiation to a halt over just one issue is self-defeating. So in any successful negotiation there will be limits on linkage.
Third in this list of lessons from experience, let me offer a word on the role of outside parties. We have learned over the years that outside parties can play a helpful role in the management of conflict and the successful resolution of confrontations. Outsiders can be either single countries or multilateral fora. Multilateral settings are often more conducive to making progress in tough negotiations because saving face is less of an issue. In this region one example of such a forum might be the SAARC. The U.S. has played a role in some such situations, and is proud of it. But our experience also tells us that outside parties, including the U.S., can play such a role only if two other conditions obtain:
On the one hand, the parties in dispute must demonstrate that they have the will and the capacity to make concessions to the other side's interests in negotiation. The only alternative to concessions is for one side simply to accept the other side's going-in position. To effect or avoid that alternative is the reason wars are fought, and wars are what negotiations are intended to prevent. Concessions are always politically painful. But no outside party can substitute for the political will, courage, and capacity to proceed of the parties themselves. And no outside party wants to participate in a doomed enterprise.
And on the other hand, for an outside party to play a useful role it must enjoy a minimum of trust, of confidence in its good will, fairness, and impartiality, from both negotiating parties. No country will ever entirely trust an outsider where vital national interests are concerned. But the minimum must be there, for both parties. To expect that an outside party will support the going-in position of one side simply signifies that there is no real basis for negotiation.
These are general thoughts drawn from experience with major conflict situations across the globe. Frankly, I think their application to the situation in South Asia today is fairly straightforward, especially for an audience of old pros like yourselves. Let me just briefly highlight a few of the more pointed propositions.
Washington thinking about South Asia has not produced any striking new conclusions in U.S. policy, beyond a general recognition of the need for greater sustained policy attention. But it has sharpened our focus on enhanced regional stability, as both the long term U.S. interest and a condition which should be of real interest to the countries of the area. As before, we encourage Pakistan and India, as the two largest countries in the area and those most deeply mired in conflict, to engage in direct negotiation to manage and resolve their differences peacefully. Conversely, we would urge both India and Pakistan to avoid courses which exacerbate legitimate security concerns along the way.
We believe that the South Asian dispute has the potential to endanger us and the rest of the world community. We know that it exacts severe economic costs and poses difficult political and military choices for Pakistan and India right now. And we are convinced that it can only be resolved through direct negotiations. We believe that significant elements in both countries are coming to share that view. We are willing to be helpful, if the conditions are right, and we seek to improve relations with both Pakistan and India partly in order to put ourselves in a position to be helpful when the conditions are right.
That does not take us very far, however, and I am aware that the general thoughts I have offered, drawn from the experience of other conflicts, may seem remote and irrelevant to some of you. The Pakistan-India confrontation runs so deep, arouses such passion, and has been going on for so long that it is difficult for people on both sides to think rationally about it. In this it seems similar to that larger Cold War experience which gave the content to so much of my professional life. It shares many familiar features of that Cold War: a penchant for moralizing and weak political thinking; a taste for stereotypes and for ascribing the vilest of motives to the other side; a habit of resorting routinely to the worst-case scenario in defining contingencies; and the compulsion to award political premiums to the hardest line.
To those in Pakistan and India who wish to escape the deadend of these impacted features, let me offer a few suggestions.
Pakistan and India will themselves define their agenda for negotiation -- no one else can -- but they will serve their own interests well if they make it a broad one. Their conflict runs so deep and has gone on for so long that the list of issues that cry out for negotiated progress is a long one. On most issues the two countries have nowhere to go but up, to the benefit of both sides: trade and economic matters, people-to-people ties, visas, academic and cultural exchanges, law enforcement cooperation, confidence-building measures and other steps to reduce the potential for confrontation in the security area, and of course engagement on the political questions too. The pool of potential agenda items is large. Pakistan and India will also define the degree of linkage among the issues on their agenda -- no one else can do this -- and they would do well to limit it by setting objectives for themselves which would be in the national interest if achieved. But of course linkage is a fact of life in international affairs even when it is not a desideratum. And everyone on all sides in South Asia recognizes the central position of the Kashmir issue on any Pakistan-India negotiating agenda. No issue is older and none is more complex, or more encrusted with passion, belief, and vested interest. It deserves to be addressed, and we are encouraged by the statements of both sides to believe that it will be addressed when talks begin.
The U.S. position on Kashmir has not changed. We continue to believe that the Kashmir issue must be resolved peacefully through bilateral negotiations between Pakistan and India, taking into account the interests and desires of the people of Kashmir. Until it is, the whole of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir will remain disputed territory. Until it is, no elections will change that status. We continue to believe that the Indian authorities should work to further curb human rights abuses on that territory, and that the Pakistani authorities should cease material support for the Kashmiri insurgency. And we wish to be helpful, on this and other issues on the Pakistan-India agenda, as and if conditions exist which will permit us to be helpful.
But, once again, that does not take us very far. Pakistan, India, and the Kashmiris, and not the United States, will determine and negotiate the resolution of the Kashmir issue, or it will persist as a running sore, draining resources, mortgaging their future, and casting a shadow on the future of global stability.
With regard to Kashmir, the bald fact is that under the conditions pertaining in Indian-held Kashmir for so many decades, as amended by seven years of insurgency, it is extremely difficult for anyone to define Kashmiri interests and aspirations with convincing plausibility. There are many claims to represent the one and only true voice of the Kashmiris. But until real progress is made on the Kashmir issue as a whole, none of them, including those issuing from elections, will be persuasive. In the circumstances in which Kashmiris live, an election should not automatically be considered a sham, but no election can be consider wholly free and fair. And the key to progress on Kashmir will therefore be a change for the better in the larger Pakistan-India context, based on courageous, good faith negotiation across the range of issues, including Kashmir.
In that larger context, it seems to me that a major obstacle is that there are many on both sides who see cherished values and limited objectives as profoundly antithetical. From their perspective, any negotiation means a sacrifice of values, and every concession that moves negotiations forward is a betrayal, even if the result is clearly in the national interest.
This difficulty may be particularly acute for Pakistanis. The origins of their state were so clearly ideological; values are so clearly the cement of their diverse polity today; their history has been so turbulent; their potential adversary is so large, and so close; their sense of vulnerability is so intense. But I believe it affects Indians too.
We Americans understand and empathize with this predicament. A similar dilemma is part of our own recent history. The process of moving forward on both its horns was prolonged, politically turbulent, and sometimes brutal. But it served an overriding national interest.
I would urge all responsible and thoughtful people, like the members of this audience, to take another look at the values of the other side. To Pakistanis, I would point out only that India is changing before our very eyes. Processes are underway in India whose outcome is hard to predict, but whose existence is no longer in doubt. In particular, successive democratically elected Indian governments, like yours, have committed themselves to expand democracy, including the rule of law, and to pursue more market-oriented economic arrangements. Like Pakistan, India is a candidate member of the community of market democracies with which Americans increasingly identify their destinies. Pakistan and India have at least that much in common. And recognizing this may be helpful to you as you embark on a negotiated reduction of your aging confrontation.
We Americans wish you well, we have confidence in your capacity to make progress and to succeed, and we wish to be with you as you move forward. Thank you.
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