The Rediff Special

'Conflict is like a stubborn disease which India and Pakistan alone have in their power to cure'

US Ambassador to Pakistan Thomas W Simons, Jr discussed regional stability in South Asia at the prestigious United Service Institution, New Delhi, last week. This is what he had to say:

Good Neighbourly Relations: the India-Pakistan Relationship

As the bipolar world of the Cold War recedes into memory and the evolving framework of transnational issues just outlined begins to determine the shape of international relations, major world regions will play increasingly important and independent roles. North America, the European Union, the Russian Federation -- a region in itself, the Pacific Rim countries, the Organisation of American States.... these, and the multinational corporations for which these regions serve as home bases, have become the engines of an open, expanding world economy.

In each [of these regions large states and small have learned to move from rivalry to market-based economic co-operation. In the process they have confronted ancestral hatred and overcome generations of mistrust and prejudice. They have negotiated not only mutually beneficial trade relationships but also regional agreements on the most sensitive national security matters.

I have mentioned renunciation of the nuclear weapons option by Brazil and Argentina; new economic arrangements accompanied their no-nukes pledge and both countries have proposed despited their disparity in size and natural resources.

States and nations, like the human beings that compose them, are not fixed entities. They define themselves best as they go along. Thus, within each region all states should have equal opportunities to shape their destinies and to work out the roles they can best play in their evolving regional community and in the larger international one.

Larger states have special responsibilities for fashioning and articulating the good-neighbourly relations that should mark a region in party by finding ways to accommodate the sincere aspirations of their neighbours. We know from our own experience the extra effort his takes and that large states cannot do it alone; they must be helped by all regional partners, but they must take the lead. I am therefore quite encouraged by Foreign Minister Gujral's recognition in September that India, as South Asia's largest state, 'must do more for its neighbours than it can expect in return.'

The United States has long been concerned about the consequences of the continued hostile standoff between India and Pakistan. There are good reasons for this concern.

First, there is the constant threat of escalation to armed conflict. India and Pakistan have gone to war on three occasions in my lifetime. The growing interest in both countries in developing, fielding, and acquiring the capability to deliver nuclear weapons is deeply alarming to a generation of Americans who grew up under a nuclear shadow. With a history of three wars, a nuclear-equipped South Asia seems especially dangerous to us.

Second, we wish all the countries of the region well, and Indo-Pakistani tension is a significant drain on the resources of its two largest countries. Frankly, both countries could better use such resources to address social, economic, and infrastructure development needs. Added to these brute costs are the costs of lost opportunities. Regional tensions have severely constrained the normal business and trade ties which would have increased the prosperity of both nations and served as a natural regional springboard for indigenous multinational corporations.

Americans are familiar with both the brute and the opportunity costs of arms races. And we also know, from the same hard experience, the cost of going beyond basic nuclear deterrence to full-scale weaponization -- the fielding and maintenance of sophisticated delivery systems for nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. It is astronomical, to a degree almost inconceivable to those who have not paid the price.

It goes far beyond a drain on budgetary resources. We preserved our liberties, but we paid for the Cold War with a serious degradation of many of our basic national structures: our schools, our roads, our cities, and our civil courtesies. if we now seem absorbed as a nation with our domestic affairs, it is partly because we need to repair and revitalise those structures.

We earnestly hope our friends and partners in the new international community will have the wisdom and good fortune to bypass this painful series of steps, which is such a drain on human and economic resources better applied to the normal activities of free societies.

For almost fifty years - since I was a small boy in South Asia - the Indo-Pakistani conflict has been sapping the energies of two great nations and deflecting them from pursuits which otherwise enjoy widespread public support and political consensus in both societies.

The conflict is like a stubborn disease which India and Pakistan alone have in their power to cure -- by talking with one another. Outsiders in the world community can help, perhaps, on some issues, but the course and outcome of talks can only be determined by the political will and the skills of the leaders in both countries. It will not be easy.

At the same time, I have real hope that the healing process in Indo-Pak relations can begin and will be successfully pursued -- for two reasons.

First, Indo-Pakistani tensions have been so prolonged that the potential agenda for productive negotiations is huge. From wayward fishermen languishing in each side's jails to the sterile military confrontation on Siachen Glacier; from the opening of trade in fulfillment of WTO obligations to the implementation and introduction of confidence-building measures; from protection the environment to curbing terrorism and narco-trafficking: the list of issues begging for mutually advantageous agreement goes on and on.

In particular, trade and investment in South Asia will create positive, new channels for interaction between the United States and nations of the region and, we hope, between the individual countries themselves.

Second, as they approach their golden jubilees as nations, both countries, it seems to me, should be filled with a national mood of reflective confidence, which can be a prelude to purposeful negotiation. 'Reflective confidence' is admittedly a rare commodity in political life, including ours, and politics are turbulent in both countries.

I cannot make judgements about India, although Ambassador Wisner and the evidence of my own eyes assure me of encouraging progress on the path of democracy you chose so long ago, and the path toward market-oriented economic management you chose more recently.

Still, my optimism is blunted and the plans for jubilee celebrations are clouded by the tensions which have marked the bilateral relationship since its birth. And the core of those tensions, overshadowing all the others, is the dispute over Kashmir.

For the record and for the sake of consistency, let me repeat word for word what I told a distinguished Pakistani audience two months ago in Islamabad:

'The United States 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 - Indian agenda, as and if conditions exist which will permit us to be helpful.'

But, as I also told my Pakistani friends, that alone did not take us very far. I told them that in the circumstances in which Kashmiris live, an election should not be automatically considered a sham -- that was the part the alert Indian press noticed -- but no election can be considered wholly free and fair -- that was the part the Pakistani press focused on. But my real points were that the Kashmir issue cannot be solved on either side of the line of control or on one side alone.

The key to progress on Kashmir will be a change for the better in the larger Indo-Pakistan context, based on courageous, good faith negotiation across the full range of issues, including Kashmir.

I fervently believe that the opportunity is still there for just such negotiations. But I must add, among Indian friends, that just as Pakistan will not go away as a nation, neither will Kashmir disappear as a vexing international issue. It cannot be the only issue dealt with in talks between India and Pakistan, but it must be dealt with seriously as an issue of genuine concern.

As Frank Wisner has suggested, India should seize the moment afforded by the return of civilian government to Kashmir to reduce security pressures where possible and to fulfill commitments of greater political autonomy, enhanced economic development, and increased contacts among Kashmiri leaders of all persuasions. Neither Indian nor Pakistan should let the window slam shut on an opportunity to move towards a long term resolution of one of the world's oldest and most dogged issues.

In fostering stability in South Asia, the greater political responsibility falls on the larger nation. Returning after so many years to your great country, amid happy personal memories and to such a warm reception, I believe India is ready to should that larger load, just as I believe Pakistan is ready to take on its fair share of the burden.

A stable Pakistan, confidence in the security of all its borders, committed like India to democracy and a market-oriented economy, can be India's ideal South Asian partner.

Such a Pakistan can serve as India's buffer and its bridge to the Middle East and Central Asia.

Such a Pakistan can free India to take on many more of the regional and international responsibilities to which it aspires as Asia's second largest state and the world's largest democracy.

And frankly, such a Pakistan is just what is now missing from India's regional policy mix.

India and Pakistan share a birth and taken together almost a century of independence. Both countries should be proud of their past, pleased with their progress toward the democratic and economic goals they have set, and confident of their futures. If both work together to reduce the tensions between them, they could unleash all the enormous energies locked up for so long by their impacted conflict.

I am an American full of hope for India and Pakistan.