Prime Minister Manmohan Singh firmly but politely stood his ground on talks with Pakistan, saying that a dialogue cannot take place when the “terror machine is as active as ever before”. Speaking at a joint press interaction with United States President Barack Obama, Dr Singh pointed out that outsourcing has in fact helped to improve the productive capacity and productivity of US companies. Reaching out to the American people, he reassured them that India was not in the business of stealing their jobs.
He said India was committed to “engaging Pakistan” and resolving outstanding issues between the two countries — “including the ‘K’ word. We are not afraid of that.” However, he was quick to add that “it is our request that you cannot simultaneously (be) talking and at the same time the terror machine is as active as ever before. Once Pakistan moves away from the terror-induced coercion, we will be very happy to engage productively with Pakistan to resolve all outstanding issues.”
For his part, Mr Obama categorically rejected Pakistan’s all-or-nothing stand on talks with India, saying that dialogue need not start from “the particular flashpoint”; instead, both sides could “begin with confidence-building measures”. He also said that all nations in the region need to work together to ensure there are no safe havens for terrorists. Mr Obama reiterated it in his speech to Parliament later in the day, in which he said the US will continue to insist to Pakistan’s leaders that terrorist safe havens within their borders are unacceptable and that the terrorists behind the Mumbai attacks must be brought to justice.
Treading carefully keeping in mind the sensitivities involved, Mr Obama also said the US cannot provide solutions to the “longstanding dispute” between India and Pakistan, but it will be happy to play “any role” if the two countries so desire. He commended Dr Singh for his personal commitment to reducing tensions with Pakistan and for his sincere and relentless pursuit of peace.
Dr Singh’s remarks came the day after Mr Obama, while interacting with a group of college students in Mumbai, had sought to nudge India to resume talks with Pakistan. In doing so, Dr Singh deftly lobbed the ball back in Pakistan’s court. It elicited an immediate reaction from Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who qualified Pakistan’s willingness to engage with India by saying that terrorists have spread their tentacles far and wide and therefore, the world cannot be selective towards a particular country.
What Dr Singh left unsaid was that the United States could leverage its influence with Pakistan to get the latter to dismantle the infrastructure of terror directed against India. New Delhi will be hoping that Mr Obama’s words — “don’t take my word for it, look at our actions”, which he used to underscore the breadth and depth of the India-US ties — turn out to be prophetic in shaping Washington’s policy towards Islamabad.
The subtext of the Singh-Obama tandem was that India and the US have decided to work as “equal partners” in a strategic relationship that holds the potential of decisively influencing regional stability and world peace, and it would not have escaped notice in major world capitals.