http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081201/j ... 188967.jsp
Flurry of calls to PM to calm India
JAYANTH JACOB
New Delhi, Nov. 30: US President George W. Bush was among several world leaders who called Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today as India-Pakistan relations turned frosty after the Mumbai attack.
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso also spoke to Singh and voiced concern over terrorism, sources said.
Observers said the world leaders could be hoping to get India and Pakistan to jointly tackle terrorism and prevent a flare-up between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
Pakistan had yesterday said it was considering moving troops from the Afghanistan border to the Indian border, a warning that would have alarmed the US and other governments with forces in Afghanistan. Pakistan has around 100,000 troops in the border areas and its support is regarded as crucial to efforts to defeat al Qaida globally and quell a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
The Pakistan government has begun to rally support abroad, with foreign minister Shah Mehmood Quereshi calling up his counterparts in China and the UAE as well as the EU foreign policy chief to say the country had promised all help to India.
Asked if Singh had taken up with the world leaders who called him the involvement of “Pakistani elements” in the Mumbai attack, a top source merely said: “The issue of terrorism is something all world leaders are concerned about and determined to deal with.”
India has blamed “elements in Pakistan” — not the Pakistani state — for the attack, but has reminded the neighbour of its commitment that “its soil will not be used for terror attacks against India”.
Singh had asked the Pakistan Prime Minister to send the ISI chief to Delhi to see the evidence, a demand Yousaf Raza Gilani first accepted but later backtracked on.
Bush, who had called Singh on Thursday, said in a statement yesterday: “The killers who struck this week are brutal and violent. But terror will not have the final word. The people of India are resilient. The people of India are strong.”
He called the attacks that have killed at least 170, including six Americans, an assault on human dignity and said India, the world’s largest democracy, can count on the US, the world’s oldest democracy, to stand by it.
Bush held an hour-long video-conference yesterday with US diplomats in India.
Foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon will tonight leave for Washington, where he will make India’s first contact with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team. Obama, too, had called Singh after the Mumbai attack.
Although Menon’s visit was planned earlier, the foreign secretary is expected to discuss terrorism with them. Menon had a detailed discussion with foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee today on his proposed meeting with Obama’s team.
Wendy Sherman, co-chair of the State Department’s Agency Review Team, tasked with preparing policy and personnel for the soon-to-be-named secretaries, is among the Obama team members he is likely to meet.
A meeting with under secretary of state for political affairs William Burns, who served as Washington’s chief interlocutor during the last lap of the nuclear deal, is also likely, sources said. Burns is expected to get a prominent position in Obama’s foreign policy establishment.
Nuclear trade and climate change as well as the security situation in South Asia are other issues that will come up in the talks.
