Pakistan and India, Is This A Good Idea?

[Annie]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050326/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_india_pakistan

India Objects to U.S.-Pakistan Arms Deal

17 minutes ago

By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration rewarded Pakistan, an improbable ally in the war on terrorism, with a promise Friday that it could buy sophisticated U.S.-built F-16 warplanes. Pakistan's nuclear rival, India, immediately complained the sale would threaten its security. The sales would represent a shift in policy after years of sanctions and harsh rhetoric from Washington over Pakistan's nuclear ambitions and what U.S. administrations have seen as tolerance for Islamic extremism. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, however, Pakistan has become an important partner in hunting suspected terrorists and cracking down on anti-American extremists.


Mindful of the fragile balance of power in South Asia, the administration also gave a green light to India for its own purchase of sophisticated weapons.


State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the administration sent reports to Congress on Friday describing proposals to sell armaments to both Pakistan and India. Congress must sign off on the sensitive technology export.


Ereli said, "We are looking to improve security and improve prosperity and improve development of the entire region as a whole."


"Part of that is a decision to begin negotiations with the Pakistani government and Congress to sell F-16s to Pakistan and to respond favorably to a request for information from India for the possible sale of multi-role combat aircraft," he said.


U.S. defense companies are now "free to talk to India about what they have to offer, and it will be up to India to decide what it wants," to buy, Ereli said.


The move allows Pakistan to finally move ahead on planned purchases of two dozen F-16s dating to the 1980s, before the United States blocked the sale because of Pakistan's increasingly obvious drive to build nuclear weapons.


There is no limit on future sales to Pakistan, a State Department official said on condition of anonymity.


Pakistan's information minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, called the decision a "good gesture by the United States" and said the transaction would ease anti-American sentiment in the Islamic nation.


"This will fulfill our defense requirements," he said. "We had been lagging behind (India) in conventional weapons. This will improve the situation."


Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) said she discussed sales of F-16s to both Pakistan and India during back-to-back visits to those countries earlier this month. Rice chose not to announce the Pakistan decision on that trip in part to avoid angering India.


India and Pakistan have fought three wars since the former British colony was partitioned in 1947 into predominantly Hindu and predominantly Muslim states.


President Bush (news - web sites) tried to head off Indian worries with an early morning phone call to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Calling from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, Bush told Singh that the administration was moving ahead with the sale, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.


At the same time, Bush told Singh that the United States was responding to India's request for information on its own future warplane purchases, Perino said.


The United States reassured India that it had the administration's blessing to buy F-16s, or perhaps F-18s. India is contemplating a multibillion dollar purchase of fighter planes, including U.S.-built or foreign-made aircraft.


The United States has sold a variety of weaponry to India since lifting a ban on arms sales three years ago that had been imposed after an Indian nuclear test. Last year, in a move seen as a coup for India, the administration gave the go-ahead for Lockheed Martin to give India information for prospective sales of F-16s.


Singh told Bush that sales to Pakistan would endanger security in the region, and expressed "great disappointment" over the decision, Sanjaya Baru, the prime minister's spokesman said.

New Delhi is worried that arming Pakistan with the advanced jet fighters would tilt the military balance in the region and could adversely affect peace talks between India and Pakistan.

The F-16 sale to Pakistan is meant to remove a persistent irritant in U.S.-Pakistani relations. Pakistan struck a deal with the United States to buy the nuclear-capable F-16 fighter jets 15 years ago, but the agreement was scrapped in the 1990s when Washington imposed sanctions.

 

[onedomino]

How about this idea?

US Unveils Plans to Make India a 'Major World Power' this Century

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050326/wl_sthasia_afp/usindia

Fri Mar 25
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States unveiled plans to propel India into a "major world power in the 21st century" even as it announced moves to beef up the military capability of New Delhi's nuclear rival Pakistan.

Under the plans, Washington offered to step up a strategic dialogue with India to boost missile defense and other security initiatives as well as high-tech cooperation, and expand economic and energy cooperation.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has presented to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the Bush administration's outline for a "decisively broader strategic relationship" between the world's oldest and largest democracies, a senior US official said.

"Its goal is to help India become a major world power in the 21st century," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. (oh, that guy, terrific AFP source) "We understand fully the implications, including military implications, of that statement."

He did not elaborate but noted that South Asia was critical, with China on one side, Iran and the Middle East on the other, and a somewhat turbulent Central Asian region to the north.

The US-India plan was announced as Washington decided Friday to sell an undetermined number of F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan under a plan to prop up Pakistan on the political, military and economic fronts.

Rice discussed the US-India plan with Singh during her Asian visit earlier this month but it was not revealed to the public.

The US proposal culminates efforts to repair relations strained by India's May 1998 nuclear tests.

The healing process began when Bill Clinton visited India in May 2000 near the end of his presidency, the first president to go there since Jimmy Carter in 1978. He eased sanctions on purchases of high-tech equipment and broke into a market formerly served by India's Cold War ally Russia.

President George W. Bush's administration, under a so-called "Next Steps in Strategic Partnership," pushed that process forward by completely lifting sanctions, including military sales, in return for India's support on the US-led war on terrorism.

"This year the administration made a judgment that the next steps in strategic partnership, though very important, wasn't broad enough to really encompass the kind of things we needed to do to take this relationship where it needed to go, and so the president and the secretary (Rice) developed the outline for a decisively broader strategic relationship," the US official said.

Bush was inviting Prime Minister Singh to visit him in July in Washington and the US leader would also like to travel to South Asia later this year or early next year, he said.

Those presidential meetings, he added, would "be consolidating an enhanced dialogue" on the strategic, energy and economic tracks with India.

The strategic dialogue will include global issues, regional security matters, Indian defense requirements, expanding high-tech cooperation and even working towards US-India defense co-production, the official explained.

The United States, he said, was prepared to "respond positively" to an Indian request for information on American initiatives to sell New Delhi their next generation of multi-role combat aircraft.

"That's not just F-16s. It could be F-18s. But beyond that, the US is ready to discuss even more fundamental issues of defense transformation with India, including transformative systems in areas such as command and control, early warning and missile defense," the official said.

"Some of these items may not be as glamorous as combat aircraft, but I think for those of you who follow defense issues you'll appreciate the significance," he said.

The energy dialogue is to include civil, nuclear and nuclear safety issues as well as the issue of space launch vehicles and satellites while the existing economic dialogue would be revitalized with discussion of energy, trade, commerce, environment and finance.

US energy, treasury and transport ministers are to visit India this year.