Ensure your aid to Pakistan not misused: India to US
By IANSThursday, January 14, 2010
NEW DELHI - Ruling out any Indian threat to Pakistan, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao Thursday urged the US to ensure that the billions of dollars of American aid given to Islamabad is not diverted for anti-India activities.
A day after External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna spoke to his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi and asked him to bring the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack to justice speedily, Rao made it clear that any normalisation of relations with Pakistan is possible only when the patronage extended to anti-India forces is stopped in that country.
“The phenomenon of cross border terrorism has also illustrated the difficulties that we face in dealing with Pakistan,” Rao said at the launch of the India Initiative of the Centre for a New American Security and the ASPEN Institute India.
“We face hostile forces across our border with Pakistan, although we have consistently stressed our support for the advancement of democracy, the growth of civil society, and economic development in an atmosphere of peace in Pakistan - goals that the US also identifies with,” she said.
Underlining the linkage of terrorists and militants who target India with patronage from powerful forces and institutions in Pakistan, Rao said: “It is vital that this support must stop forthwith.”
“Any viable process of normalization of our relations with Pakistan is essentially dependent on this requirement since it is unrealistic to think otherwise,” she stressed.
Linking surging violence with sanctuaries of terrorists sheltering in the border areas of Pakistan, Rao stressed on expanding bilateral cooperation with the US to deal with terrorism in the region.
“It is equally critical for the US and the international community to pay adequate attention to and realize that the situation both in Afghanistan-Pakistan and the cross-border terrorism that emanates from Pakistan against India are manifestations of the use of terrorist ideologies to promote unscrupulous political or institutional agendas,” she said.
Rao firmly denied any threat to Pakistan from India, a fear that is often whipped up by vested interests in the neighbouring country.
“Pakistans concerns of the perceived threat in the east and on Indian activities in Afghanistan need to be unequivocally rebutted, she said.
We have reiterated a number of times that we harbour no aggressive designs on Pakistan, Rao added.
