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US help on Kashmir won't compromise Indian stand: Torricelli

Aziz Haniffa in Washington

India should accept international help on Kashmir, possibly from the US, influential US Senator Robert G Torricelli has said.

"I think it is a mistake for India not to seek some international assistance in resolving the Kashmir problem," Torricelli, a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Senate Finance Committees, told IANS in an exclusive interview.

"The Kashmir issue cannot go on for another generation and as we've experienced with the Middle East and then Northern Ireland, sometimes the good offices of the United States can help bring things to a resolution," he said.

Torricelli was among a few senators who at one time recommended to then president Bill Clinton that he appoint a US trouble-shooter on Kashmir.

So far, the US policy has been that it will offer its good offices only if both India and Pakistan want it. Pakistan has implored the US to mediate, but India has been totally opposed to any such third-party intervention in Kashmir.

Torricelli said: "India does not have to abandon its position that this (Kashmir) is an internal matter. The British certainly have not surrendered their view that Northern Ireland is an internal matter. I hope they (India) will reconsider their position."

Torricelli said there had been a definite improvement in US-India relations over the past couple of years.

"Some of the difficulties between our countries during the Cold War and during the Afghanistan war have been put behind us. So, I think the countries are much closer -- certainly economically and increasingly politically."

Torricelli, however, said he was not in favour of a strategic US-India partnership, particularly as a counterweight to China.

"I don't think it is in anybody's interest to have strategic partnerships. That simply would renew Chinese-Indian or Indian-Pakistani rivalries. India's best position is its well-founded neutrality."

"What is important is that there be this working relationship with the United States to avoid misunderstandings and we try to attempt to share a world view. Being realistic about it, I don't think our interests have become identical and we still have some different world perceptions. But there certainly has been a lot of progress."

On whether he would like to see the US remove sanctions imposed on India in the wake of the 1998 nuclear tests, he replied in the affirmative.

"I don't think sanctions really serve any purpose. I think the lifting of sanctions is entirely appropriate. The administration should consider them if we can find some common understanding of India about where it is proceeding now with its nuclear programme."

Indo-Asian News Service

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