Political India: Engaging America

From The Hindu

While the United States has refused to corroborate the suggestion — implied by some of the WikiLeaks documents — that Pakistan’s spy agency colluded with the Taliban against Western forces in Afghanistan, a State Department spokesman however said Pakistan had to do more to prove that it was implementing a “strategic shift against insurgent groups”.

At a briefing, Assistant Secretary Philip Crowley said that even prior to the whistleblower website releasing military and intelligence documents on the war in Afghanistan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had said in Islamabad that Pakistan needed to “ensure that insurgent groups are not being supported by elements within Pakistan who continue to follow an old mindset that conflicts with Pakistan’s own security interests”.

Following the WikiLeaks scoop, however, Mr. Crowley suggested that such a shift would have particular salience for India and, “If Pakistan wants to convince India that it has made this kind of fundamental change, bringing to justice those who are responsible for the Mumbai attack would be a very, very constructive and important step.”

He added there was little doubt that India wanted to see Pakistan taking steps to bring to justice those people that threatened neighbouring states, underscoring, “We continue to have conversations with Pakistan on bringing to justice those responsible for the Mumbai attack.”

In terms of the U.S.’ perspective on the matter, Mr. Crowley said there were some indications that Pakistan had fundamentally changed its approach to insurgencies in the past year to two.

Yet he added, “Are we still concerned about this? Absolutely, we are.” Mr. Crowley also reiterated that the Secretary had outlined these concerns to both the Pakistani Government and the Pakistani people in “very direct and very candid” discussions last week.

Labels: India Pakistan relations, Taliban, Wikileaks