U.S. ignoring India's 'concerns on terrorism'

U.S. ignoring India's 'concerns on terrorism'

NEW DELHI (Agencies): India on Friday openly criticized the
United States for ignoring its concerns on terrorism a week after
offering Washington "unstinted support" in its campaign to fight
the menace.

In an interview to The Times of India, Prime Minister Atal
Behari Vajpayee said: "No statements have emanated from
Washington to suggest that the US, though appreciative of India's
offer to support its war against terrorism, was in a mood to
focus on India's bitter experience of terrorist activities on its
soil."

An armed Muslim insurgency in Indian-administered Kashmir has
claimed more than 35,000 lives since 1989.

India accuses Pakistan of training, arming and funding Islamic
militant groups operating in Kashmir. Islamabad refutes the
charge, saying it offers only moral and diplomatic support to the
rebels.

India tightened security both within the country and along its
borders on Friday amid a growing sense of foreboding about the
potential fallout of the crisis in Afghanistan.

Defense officials said troops were on alert along the border
with Pakistan in the northern states of Punjab and Rajasthan,
while even in the northeast near Bangladesh police were hunting
out militants to head off any unrest.

One Indian defense official reported a build-up of troops on
the Pakistani side of the border in Punjab, though in Pakistan, a
military spokesman said there were no troop movements and no
change on its international borders with India.

Officials said late on Thursday that police had arrested five
activists from a Muslim student organization in the northern
state of Uttar Pradesh for promoting communal unrest.

Commenting on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's charge
that India was seeking to exploit the situation to damage
Islamabad's interests, Vajpayee said "the allegations were along
expected lines."

"What concerns him (Musharraf) is not terrorism. It is
Kashmir.

"How can he be concerned about terrorism? He has promoted it."

The premier's strongly worded comments did not evoke any
surprise from analysts in New Delhi.

Another former foreign secretary, S.K. Singh, described
Vajpayee's statements on Pakistan as "accurate and precise."

"Musharraf's attitude towards India is always conditioned by
Kashmir. So what the prime minister said is very correct," Singh
said.

"Vajpayee was serving notice to Islamabad that if they go
abusive, the India-Pakistan dialogue will be impeded."

In his interview, Vajpayee also alleged the United States had
not declared Pakistan a terrorist state, a longstanding demand by
New Delhi, because "it has not seen terrorism in this part of the
world in the correct perspective."

"It is for America to decide whether terrorism is a global
phenomenon or whether it is restricted to just one individual,"
Vajpayee said, referring to the US campaign to catch Saudi
dissident Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the attacks that
killed more than 6,300 in the United States.

"America alone can determine whether it will address the
symptom of terrorism or the system of terrorism," Vajpayee was
quoted as saying.

"America will have to look at the sanctuaries provided to
terrorists, at the training camps, at the arms and the money
flowing into the hands of the terrorists if it wants to get rid
of terrorism, root and branch."

According to Kanti Bajpai, a professor at New Delhi's
Jawaharlal Nehru University, India's offer of assistance to
Washington came "too fast, too unconditionally."