US Support For Pakistan Angers India

[RiazHaq]

http://www.riazhaq.com/2015/10/us-reaffirms-ties-with-pakistan-obama.html

All the speculations about the United States walking away from Pakistan this year have been proved wrong by the joint statement issued by the White House after this week's summit meeting between Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and US President Barack Obama in Washington D.C.

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US-Pakistan Joint Statement:

The US-Pakistan joint statement reaffirmed "enduring U.S.-Pakistan partnership" for "a prosperous Pakistan, and a more stable region." It commits the two sides to work "jointly toward strengthening strategic stability in South Asia". The statement further said that "President Obama expressed support for Pakistan’s efforts to secure funding for Diamer* Bhasha and Dasu dams to help meet Pakistan’s energy and water needs."

Referring to the strained India-Pakistan ties, the statement said that both leaders "emphasized the importance of a sustained and resilient dialogue process between the two neighbors aimed at resolving all outstanding territorial and other disputes, including Kashmir, through peaceful means and working together to address mutual concerns of India and Pakistan regarding terrorism".

US Assistance to Pakistan:

There are also media reports indicating that President Obama has decided to sell 8 new F-16s to Pakistan. Mr. Obama has also pledged $900 million in assistance to Pakistan for 2015-16. In addition, both Washington Post and New York Times have reported that the United States wants to negotiate a civil nuclear deal with Pakistan. Pakistan has said it will not accept any conditions that limit its nuclear weapons program in exchange for a civil nuclear deal with the United States.

India's Strong Negative Reaction:

As expected, India has reacted with anger to references to US support for strategic stability in South Asia region, support for Diamer Bhasha dam financing and resolution of Kashmir issue through peaceful means. The reports of F-16 sale to Pakistan and possible US-Pakistan civil nuclear deal have also elicited a strong negative reaction in New Delhi.

The US-Pakistan joint statement and several White House fact sheets have detailed US-Pakistan cooperation in education, energy, trade and investment, defense, cybersecurity and counter terrorism.

US-Pakistan Partnerships:

Under the U.S.-Pakistan Clean Energy Partnership, the United States said it "will work with the Government of Pakistan to advance energy sector reforms, improve the investment framework, and make targeted investments that will enable U.S., Pakistani, and international private sector developers to add at least 3,000 megawatts (MW) ofclean power generation infrastructure to Pakistan’s national electricity system, benefitting 30 million Pakistanis".

Under the Education partnership, the United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), committed $70 million to work jointly with the Government of Pakistan and other partners to help educate and empower more than 200,000 additional adolescent girls across Pakistan.

The United States is already funding three centers for advanced studies for agriculture, energy and water under the education partnership. The Center For Advanced Studies in Agriculture is at the University of Agriculture in Faisalabad, the Center For Advanced Studies in energy at Peshawar University and the Center For Advance Studies in water at Mehran University. These centers are working with major US universities.

Under Trade and Investment Partnership, the United States will help upgrade the capabilities of the ready-made garments (RMG) sector through support of vocational centers dedicated to RMG and improvements in industry labor conditions. U.S. assistance will also help scale-up Pakistan’s International Labor Organization (ILO)-International Labor Standards (ILS) Textile program and support the launch of an ILO “Better Work Program.” Also, the United States will support an investment event in New York to highlight opportunities in Pakistan’s RMG industry and other sectors. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will assist the Government of Pakistan in identifying and petitioning for additional GSP tariff lines and to obtain eligibility for exports of goods under newly GSP-eligible travel goods tariff lines.

Summary:

The latest Obama-Sharif Summit in Washington has cleared up any confusion that may have been created by the continuing US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and the expiration of Kerry-Lugar Bill. The US-Pakistan joint statement has firmly established continuing US interest in maintaining close ties with Pakistan. Pakistan's strategic location makes it attractive to both the United States and China, the world's two largest economic and military powers, to maintain close ties with it. What comes out of these ties will ultimately be determined by how well the Pakistani leaders leverage them for maximum benefit for the well-being of the people of Pakistan.

http://www.riazhaq.com/2015/10/us-reaffirms-ties-with-pakistan-obama.html

 

[just_saying]

US has pushed Pakistan to stop terrorism in India .... International Media Says

 

[Pathfinder]

US has pushed Pakistan to stop terrorism in India .... International Media Says

And what about Bunya terrorism in Pakistan?

 

[RiazHaq]

And what about Bunya terrorism in Pakistan?

Referring to the strained India-Pakistan ties, the statement said that both leaders "emphasized the importance of a sustained and resilient dialogue process between the two neighbors aimed at resolving all outstanding territorial and other disputes, including Kashmir, through peaceful means and working together to address mutual concerns of India and Pakistan regarding terrorism".

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/10/22/2015-joint-statement-president-barack-obama-and-prime-minister-nawaz

 

[RiazHaq]

Meanwhile in India: US-Pakistan bonhomie leaves India at a loss

External Affairs Ministry says offer of F-16 fighter jets will affect regional stability in South Asia.

India on Friday took exception to the American appreciation for Pakistan’s anti-terror operations and the American pledge to provide eight F-16 aircraft to the Pakistan Air Force.

At a weekly press conference, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup, said: “Our reservations about providing such platforms [F-16] to Pakistan are well known and all countries are aware of India’s position in such cases.” He said supply of such strategic platforms to Pakistan could not help South Asia, especially in view of reports that Pakistan had acquired tactical and miniaturised battlefield nuclear weapons.

The joint statement issued at the end of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Washington DC has been criticised in Indian policy circles as it entrusts Pakistan with maintaining “strategic stability” in South Asia. Experts have argued that the American decision-makers have misread Pakistani commitment to strategic stability in South Asia, especially since gifting the F-16 jets will further embolden Pakistan’s reckless nuclear establishment. “Pakistan is already the largest owner of nuclear weapons in South Asia. It is a known beneficiary of a clandestine nuclear programme. How can strategic stability in South Asia be maintained by gifting fighter jets to a country which has violated all norms of regional peace and stability,” asked Ajay Lele of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).

That apart, India has also expressed reservations about the support President Barack Obama has extended to securing finances for the Diamer-Bhasha and Dasu dams in Gilgit Baltistan which India believes cannot be built because of it is in an area under “illegal occupation of Pakistan.” The joint statement repeatedly referred to Pakistan’s need to deal with issues arising out of water and energy issues and both sides have also joined hands for researching on water to help Pakistan.

The joint statement was dissected critically by India which finds the Obama-Sharif call for dialogue on Kashmir an irritant. That apart, India has been surprised by the description of “terrorism as of mutual concern” between India and Pakistan.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article7798044.ece

 

[modern.fakir]

[hilar][hilar]...lets gift this to the poor fellows

Meanwhile in India: US-Pakistan bonhomie leaves India at a loss

External Affairs Ministry says offer of F-16 fighter jets will affect regional stability in South Asia.

India on Friday took exception to the American appreciation for Pakistan’s anti-terror operations and the American pledge to provide eight F-16 aircraft to the Pakistan Air Force.

At a weekly press conference, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup, said: “Our reservations about providing such platforms [F-16] to Pakistan are well known and all countries are aware of India’s position in such cases.” He said supply of such strategic platforms to Pakistan could not help South Asia, especially in view of reports that Pakistan had acquired tactical and miniaturised battlefield nuclear weapons.

The joint statement issued at the end of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Washington DC has been criticised in Indian policy circles as it entrusts Pakistan with maintaining “strategic stability” in South Asia. Experts have argued that the American decision-makers have misread Pakistani commitment to strategic stability in South Asia, especially since gifting the F-16 jets will further embolden Pakistan’s reckless nuclear establishment. “Pakistan is already the largest owner of nuclear weapons in South Asia. It is a known beneficiary of a clandestine nuclear programme. How can strategic stability in South Asia be maintained by gifting fighter jets to a country which has violated all norms of regional peace and stability,” asked Ajay Lele of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA).

That apart, India has also expressed reservations about the support President Barack Obama has extended to securing finances for the Diamer-Bhasha and Dasu dams in Gilgit Baltistan which India believes cannot be built because of it is in an area under “illegal occupation of Pakistan.” The joint statement repeatedly referred to Pakistan’s need to deal with issues arising out of water and energy issues and both sides have also joined hands for researching on water to help Pakistan.

The joint statement was dissected critically by India which finds the Obama-Sharif call for dialogue on Kashmir an irritant. That apart, India has been surprised by the description of “terrorism as of mutual concern” between India and Pakistan.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article7798044.ece

 

[RiazHaq]

Pakistan Air Force has sent a follow-on foreign military sale contract to Lockheed Martin to produce and upgrade Sniper Advanced Targeting Pods (ATP) for its F-16 fleet.


The contract includes the upgrade of Pakistan’s existing 22 Sniper ATPs as well as the production of 15 new Sniper ATPs.


Read: F-35 fighter loses dogfight to 1970s F-16 jet


Delivery will begin late in 2015 to satisfy Pakistan’s urgent operational needs. Upgrades will also begin in late 2015 and they will increase compatibility with the aircraft and enable enhanced features.


“Sniper ATP has supported the Pakistan Air Force’s mission since 2010,” said Rich Lovette, Sniper international programme director at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. “Additional Sniper ATPs and upgrades will give the Pakistan Air Force a more robust precision targetting capability to support the nation’s security requirements.”


Read: Air Force: Pakistan, Turkey sign MoU for training pilots


Sniper ATP enables pilots to have high-resolution imagery for precision targetting, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. It also detects, identifies, automatically tracks and laser designates small tactical targets at long ranges. Apart from that, it also enables the use of all laser and GPS-guided weapons against various fixed and moving targets.


Further, Sniper ATP can be operated on multiple platforms, including US Air Force and multi-national F-15, F-16, F-18, A-10, B-1 and B-52 aircraft.


http://tribune.com.pk/story/921256/lockheed-martin-to-upgrade-pakistans-f-16-fleet/

 

[RiazHaq]

Declassified US documents reveal #India planned attack on #Pakistan nuclear facilities at #Kahuta in 1985. #nukes http://indianexpress.com/article/ex...litary-attack-on-a-pakistani-nuclear-reactor/ …

Last week, the US State department declassified its top-secret documents from 1984-85 which focus on the Pakistani nuclear programme. The CIA analysis, and the talking points for the US Ambassador to Islamabad while handing over President Ronald Reagan’s letter to General Zia-ul Haq, show that the US warned Pakistan about an Indian military attack on the Pakistani nuclear reactor at Kahuta. But the Americans were not alone in anticipating an Indian attack. Prof Rajesh Rajagopalan of JNU recently pointed to The End of the Cold War and the Third World: New Perspectives on Regional Conflict, a book by Sergey Radchenko and Artemy M. Kalinovsky based on the declassified documents of the Eastern Block. Radchenko says that documents in the Hungarian archives show that the Soviets had shared with the Hungarians India’s plans to attack Kahuta. It is not clear though, Rajagopalan says, if the Soviets actually had access to any Indian plans or were only reporting widespread rumours. The rumours were indeed widespread, and The Washington Post had run a front-page story on December 20, 1982 headlined, ‘India said to eye raid on Pakistan’s A-plants’. It said military advisers had proposed an attack to prime minister Indira Gandhi in March 1982 but she had rejected it. In his book, India’s Nuclear Policy —1964-98: A Personal Recollection, K Subrahmanyam recollected that the Indian proposal to Pakistan for non-attack on each other’s nuclear facilities, which he suggested to Rajiv Gandhi, was an outcome of such rumours in the Western media. Although the ‘Agreement on the Non-Attack of Nuclear Facilities between Indian and Pakistan’ was first verbally agreed upon in 1985, it was formally signed in 1988 and ratified in 1991. Since 1992, India and Pakistan have been exchanging the list of their nuclear facilities on January 1 every year. -

But how close was India to attacking Kahuta in the 1980s? The first time India is believed to have considered such an attack is in 1981. The idea obviously originated from the daring Israeli attack of June 7, 1981, that destroyed the under-construction Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak. Eight F-16s of the Israeli Air Force flew more than 600 miles in the skies of three enemy nations to destroy the target and returned unscathed. In 1996, WPS Sidhu, senior fellow for foreign policy at Brookings India, was the first to state that after the induction of Jaguars, Indian Air Force (IAF) had conducted a brief study in June 1981 on the feasibility of attacking Kahuta. The study concluded that India could “attack and neutralise” Kahuta but feared that such an attack would result in a full-blown war between India and Pakistan. This was besides the concerns that an Indian attack will beget an immediate retaliatory — some say, even pre-emptive

 

[RiazHaq]

The Hindu Op Ed on Nawaz Sharif visit to Washington:

The visit and its stated outcomes undermine an increasingly fashionable strategic theory that an emerging polarisation is giving shape to two axes in South Asia – Pakistan and China on the one side and the U.S. and India on the other. As a U.S. official who briefed the Indian media put it candidly, the U.S. has global intentions that will not allow it to choose between Pakistan and India, or tilt towards either of them. He went on to clarify that relations with Pakistan and India stand on their individual merits. India should not misread the energy and intensity in its relationship with the U.S., demonstrated most recently during the Strategic and Commercial Dialogue and the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Obama last month, as U.S. willingness to jettison Pakistan. Pakistan continues to leverage its strategic location at the frontier of Afghanistan and China, and to a lesser extent, India. The U.S. appears clear that its South Asia policy involves a composite approach involving India, Pakistan and Afghanistan in its search for stability and peace, as well as of the fact that Pakistan is an important partner in the fight against global terrorism. The joint statement and the anticipated decisions – which will possibly include the sale of new F-16 fighter aircraft to Pakistan and the continuation of the Coalition Support Fund beyond 2016 – make it clear that the U.S. cannot afford to, and will not, overlook Pakistan’s significance as a regional strategic player. It will be unwise and ill-advised for India to assume it would be so.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/on-nawaz-sharifs-visit-to-united-states-and-pakistanus-ties/article7802948.ece

 

[RiazHaq]

Ex Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal on US-Pakistan ties:

Ex Foreign Sec of #India Kanwal Sibal: Why is #America siding with #Pakistan on #Kashmir? http://www.dailyo.in/politics/india...harif-pakistan-nuclear-deal/story/1/7013.html … via @dailyo_

Strategic

Obama and Sharif expressed their "shared interest in strategic stability in South Asia" in their joint statement. This ignores the fact that China's continuing nuclear and missile relationship with Pakistan makes this a triangular China-Pakistan-India affair and not merely an India-Pakistan one. Moreover, India's nuclear programme is under some agreed constraints as part of the India-US nuclear deal, while that of China and Pakistan are not. Why is the US disregarding these realities and equating India and Pakistan?

Obama applauded in the joint statement "Pakistan's role as a key counterterrorism partner". By reiterating "their common resolve to promote peace and stability throughout the region and to counter all forms of extremism and terrorism", Pakistan was made to look good. Worse, Obama made the suppression of extremism and militancy the cooperative responsibility of all South Asian countries, not only that of Pakistan as the source of all these forces. The defining counterterrorism partnership of the 21st century between India and the US is absent from all this.

Credence

Pakistan uses the excuse of Kashmir for its terrorist onslaught against India, which makes it even more necessary not to pander to its Kashmir fixation. But the US is unable to shed its traditional pro-Pakistan slant on Kashmir. Whereas in 2013, during Nawaz Sharif's Washington visit, Obama supported a "sustained dialogue process" for "resolving all outstanding territorial and other disputes through peaceful means", Kashmir was not specifically mentioned. This time, to satisfy Nawaz Sharif who has been determined to internationalise the Kashmir issue, it was. By calling Kashmir a "dispute", the US is preferring the Pakistani term. To top this, the joint statement calls for an "uninterrupted dialogue in support of peaceful resolution of all outstanding disputes", rejecting implicitly the Indian line that dialogue and terror cannot go together.

Most unfortunately, the US has implicitly given credence to Pakistan's outlandish charges against India for supporting terrorism in its territory by emphasising the importance of "working together to address mutual concerns of India and Pakistan regarding terrorism". This equates India and Pakistan on the terrorism issue. Our spokesman has rightly objected to Obama's "support for Pakistan's efforts to secure funding for the Diamer-Bhasha and Dasu dams" in Gilgit-Baltistan, despite calling it "disputed territory".

The US should not legitimise Pakistan's illegal occupation of PoK.

It is important that even as we engage the US as much as possible in our own interest, we must not lose sight of the ambiguities of America's strategic policies towards us in our region.

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/india...harif-pakistan-nuclear-deal/story/1/7013.html