After his two-day visit to New Delhi, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry has arrived in Pakistan to hold talks with the government and military leaders. While talking to Gilani, Kerry assured him that Washington and Islamabad would jointly identify "highly visible projects," which would then be undertaken with US assistance.
This is in accordance with Islamabad's consistent demand, in recent moths, for financing large-scale projects with bigger visibility, instead of many smaller ones, which required numerous American experts and monitors on the ground causing, suspicions among the public and security agencies. Pakistan has asked for US funding for big projects like a 2000-3000 MW power plant, a liver transplant facility and modern hospitals and trauma centres. In his meeting with Gilani, Kerry welcomed the government's proposal for setting up medical facilities in the militancy-hit areas and strengthening the energy sector for overcoming power shortages.
The agreement by Kerry is being interpreted as a major shift in Washington's strategy, which had hitherto felt shy of funding large development projects. The US has understandably agreed to Pakistan's proposal, as it hopes this would help stem the tide of rising anti-Americanism and improve US image. Washington has also tripled its development assistance for Pakistan for the same purpose.
The complaint that American-funded development plans had huge overhead expenses, mostly incurred on US-based NGOs entrusted with their implementation, however, remains unresolved. Washington continues to insist on implementing such projects through American NGOs. Kerry once again stressed the need for the projects being transparent. The importance of transparency was underlined by him when he explained to Zardari, at the presidency, that Washington could not release money under the Coalition Support Fund (CSF), amounting to nearly 1.5 billion dollars for the year 2010, before the audit of the disbursements made in 2009.
Kerry has also expressed Washington's willingness to help India and Pakistan revive the stalled multi-track Composite Dialogue. Forces in India, opposed to normalisation to delay the talks or keep the agenda confined to terrorism are using the terrorist attack in Pune. As Kerry arrived in New Delhi from Doha a day after the Pune attack, he was pestered with questions on the issue. What happened during his twenty-minute talks with Dr Manmohan Singh was not reported but during his intercourse with the Indian media he doggedly pleaded for the resumption of talks with Pakistan despite the incident.
He told a journalist: "We have partial responsibility because we helped Pakistan develop the Taliban". He also said that what is important to remember is that terrorists do these things "to prevent good things from happening between governments, between people." He made it clear that in his eyes, Pakistan was "the most important thing, for, what will happen in Afghanistan, will be decided in Pakistan. Western Pakistan is the key to tranquillity in Afghanistan." Asked what he expected India to do if it finds a Pakistani link to the Pune attack, he said, "I hope India will have that conversation with Pakistan and if they have evidence to that effect, it should be the first thing on the table and Pakistan has to deal with it."
Pakistan and India need to cooperate to put an end to terrorism. Keeping the fact in view, Prime Minister Gilani has offered to enhance intelligence sharing with India. Full-fledged co-operation between the two countries however requires the settlement of outstanding issues. While highly visible projects might help improve Washington's image to an extent, what would really make the difference is American pressure on India to resolve matters with Pakistan.
Resolving the Kashmir issue, in line with the aspirations of the Kashmiris, has to be given priority to put an end to extremist militancy in the region, which feeds on India's refusal to settle the issue. The water issue, too, has to be tackled on an emergency level to normalise relations between the two countries. It is widely understood that the US has sufficient clout with India. Genuine attempts, made by Washington, to resolve the key issues will improve America's image in Pakistan, more than anything else will.