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| 'US bolstering Pak is difficult for India' | | |
WASHINGTON: The US policy of acting as an "external equaliser" in the South Asian region and bolstering Pakistan has created difficulties for India, former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh has said.
"There is a difficulty when US policy acts in the region, in the entire region, as an external equaliser. It has pursued a policy of bolstering Pakistan which then encourages Pakistan to box well above its weight," Singh, said while briefing reporters at the School of International Studies at the John Hopkins University.
"Then the US loses interest and Pakistan on its own begins to flounder and when it flounders there are difficulties for India. When the US bolsters Pakistan there are difficulties for India. This is the reality," he said.
“However, it is no good asking America to do something about it, because the US, as far as Pakistan is concerned has run into a blind alley," he said.
"Forgive me but that is the reality. There is no other option but to continue its policy with Pakistan that it has and therefore India would have to continue to pay a price," he added.
Stressing that India has to find an answer to this, he said, "we have to beat it internally and we have to beat it bilaterally because in the nature of the situation is that Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq--this is our neighborhood and in this neighborhood we are only eight and a half minutes away. The US is 8500 miles away. We have to deal with it."
Singh maintained that problems faced by India will have to be settled by the country.
"One of the greatest failures of independent India's diplomacy has been its inability to manage its relations with all its neighbours. If I don't admit it then I am denying the existing reality," the former External Affairs Minister said, pointing to the unsettled issues of border with China and Pakistan.
"These are signal shortcomings. It is India that has to answer," Singh said.
To a query, he said Washington is welcome to strike a similar civilian nuclear deal with Pakistan but warned that a "great deal" will have to be transformed internally as well within Pakistan, such as democracy.
"You are most welcome to want to do that (giving Pakistan) but the question that arises then is that a great deal will have to be transformed internally within Pakistan, like democracy," he said.
He said India believes in equal and legitimate security for all. "I cannot claim that India alone has a right to be secure in the region. All countries have a right to be secure and feel secure. That is not being idealistic. That is being realistic".
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