echarcha
May 23rd, 2001, 10:13 AM
Some good news for India. US will remove sanctions in the next 4-5 months :up:
WASHINGTON: The Bush Administration has signalled quite clearly that sanctions against India, imposed following the May 1998 Shakti nuclear tests, would go one by one over the next few months.
However, similar sanctions against Pakistan would remain because of legislative strictures against military regimes that overthrow democratically elected governments.
The administrations viewpoint and moves were conveyed to the India Caucus on India on Tuesday by US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, who returned recently from New Delhi after a mission to brief the government about President Bushs missile defense proposals.
Congressional sources quoted Armitage as saying that state department experts wanted the sanctions to erode incrementally over four or five months instead of eliminating them in one big bang.
The idea apparently is to keep the whole process low-key so as to not upset the non-proliferation hawks, whose long-standing writ is being undermined by the more relaxed outlook of the Bush administration on issues like the test ban treaty.
The current administration appears to have adopted a more realistic approach to Indias nuclear tests in view of the widely understated provocation from the China-Pakistan nuclear and ballistic missile nexus that forced New Delhis hand in 1998.
Other state department officials confirmed that moves were underway to incrementally jettison the sanctions. Clarifying that Pakistan would continue to remain quarantined on several counts because of what is called Section 501 that attracts sanctions against countries where elected governments are overthrown, one official said that the state department was only considering a marginal one-time sanctions waiver against Islamabad.
This was to enable some arms and ammunition needed for peacekeeping operation in Sierra Leone. Ironically, Pakistan is going in after an Indian pullout from that country.
Armitage, however, did not commit himself to scrapping the Entities List (which circumscribe supply of sensitive defence material to individual Indian organisations) although administration officials have previously indicated that these too would be diluted gradually to allow for a more rational policy.
Indian officials concurred there was very little evidence so far at the ground level that the US was moving on the sanctions front, much less allowing any flow of hi-tech to India. Washington had reneged on a signed contract on even humanitarian military issues like a submarine rescue operations (to prevent a Kurst-like tragedy).
Written requests from India were also pending with the US for the return of equipment sent to the Lockheed Martin corporation for repairs, they said. Co-operation on the LCA front had also stopped completely.
Despite such minimal movement on the ground, Armitage struck an upbeat tone about Indo-US ties, briefing the 14 assembled lawmakers about his trip to India during which he said that Washington had conveyed to New Delhi that it wanted to develop ties with it independent of its ties to other countries.
Armitage also told the lawmakers that the US had been looking at Pakistan too much from the Osama bin Laden angle and indicated that Islamabad needed to be scrutinised more in the context of continuing cross border terrorism affecting India.
In another development, Armitage promised to pursue in the state department a move by lawmakers to send food aid worth $25 million to drought hit regions in Rajasthan and Gujarat. The aid, mainly in the form of soya bean oil under a department of agriculture surplus agricultural goods programme, has been stuck in the state department bureaucracy.
Armitage also informed the Caucus that President Bush had accepted an invitation from Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to visit India, but no schedules had been drawn up for the visit. The caucus is keen that the President's expedites the visit and gets there later this year, if possible.
http://www.timesofindia.com/today/23indu38.htm
WASHINGTON: The Bush Administration has signalled quite clearly that sanctions against India, imposed following the May 1998 Shakti nuclear tests, would go one by one over the next few months.
However, similar sanctions against Pakistan would remain because of legislative strictures against military regimes that overthrow democratically elected governments.
The administrations viewpoint and moves were conveyed to the India Caucus on India on Tuesday by US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, who returned recently from New Delhi after a mission to brief the government about President Bushs missile defense proposals.
Congressional sources quoted Armitage as saying that state department experts wanted the sanctions to erode incrementally over four or five months instead of eliminating them in one big bang.
The idea apparently is to keep the whole process low-key so as to not upset the non-proliferation hawks, whose long-standing writ is being undermined by the more relaxed outlook of the Bush administration on issues like the test ban treaty.
The current administration appears to have adopted a more realistic approach to Indias nuclear tests in view of the widely understated provocation from the China-Pakistan nuclear and ballistic missile nexus that forced New Delhis hand in 1998.
Other state department officials confirmed that moves were underway to incrementally jettison the sanctions. Clarifying that Pakistan would continue to remain quarantined on several counts because of what is called Section 501 that attracts sanctions against countries where elected governments are overthrown, one official said that the state department was only considering a marginal one-time sanctions waiver against Islamabad.
This was to enable some arms and ammunition needed for peacekeeping operation in Sierra Leone. Ironically, Pakistan is going in after an Indian pullout from that country.
Armitage, however, did not commit himself to scrapping the Entities List (which circumscribe supply of sensitive defence material to individual Indian organisations) although administration officials have previously indicated that these too would be diluted gradually to allow for a more rational policy.
Indian officials concurred there was very little evidence so far at the ground level that the US was moving on the sanctions front, much less allowing any flow of hi-tech to India. Washington had reneged on a signed contract on even humanitarian military issues like a submarine rescue operations (to prevent a Kurst-like tragedy).
Written requests from India were also pending with the US for the return of equipment sent to the Lockheed Martin corporation for repairs, they said. Co-operation on the LCA front had also stopped completely.
Despite such minimal movement on the ground, Armitage struck an upbeat tone about Indo-US ties, briefing the 14 assembled lawmakers about his trip to India during which he said that Washington had conveyed to New Delhi that it wanted to develop ties with it independent of its ties to other countries.
Armitage also told the lawmakers that the US had been looking at Pakistan too much from the Osama bin Laden angle and indicated that Islamabad needed to be scrutinised more in the context of continuing cross border terrorism affecting India.
In another development, Armitage promised to pursue in the state department a move by lawmakers to send food aid worth $25 million to drought hit regions in Rajasthan and Gujarat. The aid, mainly in the form of soya bean oil under a department of agriculture surplus agricultural goods programme, has been stuck in the state department bureaucracy.
Armitage also informed the Caucus that President Bush had accepted an invitation from Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to visit India, but no schedules had been drawn up for the visit. The caucus is keen that the President's expedites the visit and gets there later this year, if possible.
http://www.timesofindia.com/today/23indu38.htm