A battle of nerves between foreign secretary K Raghunath and US under-secretary of state for political affairs Thomas Pickering over the respective nuclear programmes of India and Pakistan seemed to be on the cards as the two prepared for talks in Washington yesterday.
Raghunath was likely to seek a clarification on the Indian Express report that a US firm, Holmes & Narver, had designed a contained firing facility now being built in Pakistan to test that countrys new nuclear weapons, an external affairs ministry spokesperson indicated yesterday.
The test firing of Pakistans Ghauri missile, which is capable of firing a nuclear weapon into large parts of India, and a statement by the US state department (foreign office) just yesterday that Pakistan was behind terrorism in Kashmir were also likely to be raised.
The US team armed itself with arguments against India a few days earlier.
The New York Times reported on April 27 that unnamed US administration officials had said Russia was assisting India to develop a mechanism to fire the Sagarika missile from submarines underwater. Both India and Russia have denied this.
The talks between Raghunath and Pickering, his counterpart in the US state department, are part of the series of exchanges between the two governments over the past year, which are meant to culminate in a visit to India by US President Bill Clinton.
The US has projected a friendly attitude towards India but has given little in terms of real gains for Indias strategic or political objectives.
There has been no support for Indias claim to a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, though the US has publicly backed the claims of Germany and Japan.
Nor has there been any change in the US insistence not to allow India to import a large range of nuclear-related technologies and equipment unless it gives up its nuclear weapons option and signs the non-proliferation and comprehensive test ban treaties.
India holds that the US has turned a blind eye over the past two decades to Pakistans clandestine acquisition of nuclear technologies and materials from the US and to the transfer of developed nuclear weapons and delivery systems from China.
As for Pakistans backing for terrorism in Kashmir, the US has only begun to criticise it over the past couple of years, since two US tourists, along with four Europeans, were kidnapped by terrorists in the valley and have remained missing.
