Cant move troops from Indo-Pak border: Pak to US

Pakistan has told the US that it cannot relocate troops from the India-Pakistan border to the Afghanistan border as it has to secure its eastern border with India.

Pakistan has told the US that it cannot relocate troops from the India-Pakistan border to the Afghanistan border as it has to secure its eastern border with India. The US,which has engaged India on the Afghanistan-Pakistan policy review,has conveyed Islamabads point of view to New Delhi.

Pakistan can take the combat in the Taliban-infested Afghanistan-Pakistan border to the next level only if it relocates its troops from the India-Pakistan border.

New Delhi,which was represented by Foreign Secretary Shivshanker Menon at the consultations in Washington last week,told the US that India was not maintaining a provocative position,and had to keep an optimum troop level on the Pakistan border for its own defence against cross-border terrorism.

Washingtons message to its counterparts in New Delhi was interpreted by some quarters here as asking India to reduce the troop on the border,but that was flatly denied by the US Embassy here.

The Indian interlocutors have told their American counterparts that there are six entities in the Pakistani establishment and relying on their assessment is not exactly prudent.

New Delhi has also tried to explain to the US its own experience in Afghanistan,and has told Washington that it is not enough to look at the military component in Afghanistan but also to work on the developmental component.

We have tried to tell them that the most successful component in Indias engagement has been on implementing developmental projects,as per their needs. Only Indian financing and technical expertise is given,and they build it,so there is a sense of ownership and they defend those projects. This is unlike the approach where foreign NGOs come and work as per their own assessment, the source said.

Shubhajit Roy

Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 25 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting on foreign affairs for more than 17 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism ‘2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury’s special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More