US should offer UNSC seat to India to resolve Kashmir issue

Lalit K Jha

Washington, May 27 (PTI) The US should offer "strong and
active" support to India for a permanent UN Security Council
seat in return for New Delhi agreeing to "genuine and
enforceable concessions" on the Kashmir issue, a veteran
American diplomat has suggested.

Cautioning the Obama administration against being "too
enthusiastic" in its effort to resolve the Kashmir issue,
foreign policy veteran Howard Schaffer said American efforts
in the region should involve "quiet diplomacy".

Schaffer is a former US Ambassador to Bangladesh and
has also served in India and Pakistan.

"Washington needs to look for ways to persuade New Delhi
to accept an agreement that does not meet all Indian demands
and involves genuine and enforceable concessions on its part,"
Schaffer has said in his latest book.

In "The Limits of Influence: America's Role in Kashmir,"
Schaffer said: "An offer of strong and active US support for a
permanent Indian UN Security Council seat could be one
approach worth weighing".

Indian acceptance of a substantial degree of autonomy
for Kashmir would need iron-clad constitutional guarantees to
be accepted by the Pakistanis, Schaffer wrote in the
concluding pages of his 272-page book.

A 36-year veteran of US Foreign Service, Schaffer served
as a political counselor in India from 1977-79 and to Pakistan
from 1974-77, besides being appointed as Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State responsible for South Asian Affairs twice.

Schaffer also cautioned the Obama administration from
being over enthusiastic in its effort to resolve the Kashmir
issue, given the sensitivities of India in this regard.

"Despite its improved relations with the US, the Indians
are likely to be more intransigent and more wary of an
outsider's role than Pakistan is, at least at first," he said.

If Washington does decide on making stronger effort, US
officials should work quietly, he said, advising the
administration against directly involving itself.

"Americans should not sit at the negotiating table - a
bad idea and one that the Indians will not accept," he wrote.

Keeping to an informal, unobtrusive role, US diplomats
will want to discourage any public discussion of their
activities, he noted.

Advising Obama against dispatching any special envoy as
President Kennedy did in 1962, when he assigned Averell
Harriman to the task, Schaffer however favoured a private
visit by an official having the president's confidence,
"despite the obvious dangers of leaks".

"The task of acting as the Obama Administration's point
persons over the long term should be given to resident US
Ambassadors backed by a carefully chosen team operating in the
State Department," he wrote. PTI LKJ
RKM