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Brownback advocates

separate policies for

India, Pakistan

WASHINGTON: Senator Sam Brownback advocated on Thursday separate US foreign policy towards India and Pakistan as US interests in both countries were separate and distinct.

In a speech at the US Institute for Peace, he explained, "tying one to the other perpetuates their zero sum game policies, and encourages the competition and animosity that is all too close to the surface in both countries. A separate policy for each might wean India and Pakistan from their habit of looking at relations with the United States through the prism of their relationship with each other."

As for Kashmir, the senator said there was no easy solution but the underscored the need to get bilateral talks between India and Pakistan started as without them increasing tension was unlikely to diminish.

He hoped that Clinton's visit would at least help promote bilateral talks. In order for the US to play a role, it would first have to develop a "robust" relationship with both countries. The president's trip offered the opportunity to put in place the foundations for such relationships.

He said he supported the Clinton stopover in Pakistan as bypassing Pakistan would have created a perception of imbalance in how the US viewed the region.

It also would have precluded the US from playing any future role in defusing tensions in the area and would have strengthened the hand of the militant anti-Western forces within Pakistan, sending a negative message to the rest of the world.

Brownback after expressing strong support for the current wooing of India by the United States turned to Pakistan. He said the situation there was different and required a different policy. "We ignore Pakistan at our own peril: it is in turmoil and it is at the crossroads of a lot of the world's major national security issues: terrorism, narcotics trafficking, anti-Western Islamic radicalism, weapons proliferation.

In addition, Pakistan plays a pivotal role in the Muslim world.

A stable, secular Pakistan should be the objective in our policy towards that country.

It is a matter of national security for the United States. We need to continue to engage Pakistan in any way we can."

Brownback said the problems the US was experiencing in Pakistan were in part the result of its inconsistent and flawed policy towards "one of our best friends in South Asia."

He said there was plenty of blame for the administration and the congress, the latter for sanctioning Pakistan for the last 20 years and thereby cutting US influence in Islamabad and the administration for not engaging with Pakistan more broadly and aggressively.

He pointed out that present legislation prevented much of the normal type of engagement and Section 508 of the Foreign Assistance Act mandated blanket sanctions on any country whose duly elected head of government was deposed by military coup or decree.

The senator said there had been "much wringing of hands" in the foreign policy community over that to do with Pakistan. One thing was certain. Leaving Pakistan to 'self-destruct" was against the security interests of the US and the West in general as well as of South Asia.ÑAPP