India may face US pressure on Kashmir

New Delhi: Former US ambassador to India Robert Blackwill has warned India that it is likely to be subjected to pressure from the US over the Kashmir issue as a fallout of Pakistan's stand that tension with India over the dispute is preventing it from fully participating in the war against terror. Blackwill, who was speaking at a CII gathering, described Pakistan as the "most dangerous foreign policy problem" that Washington is facing. "The possible effect of such an enveloping US preoccupation with Pakistan seems on its way to re-hyphenating the US-India relationship, leading the administration to see India largely through the lens of deeply disturbing developments in Pakistan," said Blackwill. "This will produce an understandable and growing US interest in trying to reduce tensions in India-Pakistan relationship, not least because Pakistan will argue that tensions with India and the Kashmir dispute are preventing it from moving robustly against the Islamic terrorists," he added. Blackwill also expressed concern that there may be a "substantial change" underway in the quality and intensity of US-India relations which goes counter to the good intentions of the two sides. He stated that China appears to be on a substantially higher plane in UN diplomacy than India which seems to have been downgraded in the Obama administration's strategic calculations. Though it wants genuinely good relations with New Delhi, there could be a substantial change viz-a-viz the policies of the Bush administration and it would take "very hard work and skillful diplomacy" from both the governments to keep the US-India relationship on its current level, he said. Blackwill said there were preliminary indications that the Obama administration had a different policy orientation towards India. "First, it is not clear that the Obama administration has the same preoccupation with the rise of Chinese power and India's balancing role in it. Rather, Washington is now naturally focused on US-China economic relations." The former ambassador said Afghanistan presented another set of potential differences between India and Pakistan. "For Washington to believe that India will not be a major player in the long-term future of Afghanistan is to ignore centuries of history, culture and mutual interaction between the two," he stated. He listed Iran as another "knotty" issue in US-India relations and a potential source of bilateral tension.