India is centrally important for America's success in the Af-Pak region, Richard Holbrooke, Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, said today.
"I want to be sure that everyone here recognises how centrally important Indian will be to this (the US success in Afghanistan and Pakistan)," he told US law makers at a Congressional hearing on Afghanistan and Pakistan convened by the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee chaired by Senator John Kerry, a key aid of President Barack Obama.
Holbrooke was recently in India to have discussions with the Indian leaders on Af-Pak issue.
"India is not formally part of my mandate, but with the support of the Indians, I try to go to New Delhi as often as I can to keep them informed and to discuss the situation with them," Holbrooke told US law makers.
"I don't think it would be valuable to go into details in the public forum, but I do want to stress that the Indians are very, very anxious that we succeed in Afghanistan. They're supporting us," he said.
"They are giving Afghanistan a lot of aid, particularly in the field of agriculture which is also our primary non-security priority – agriculture," he said.
"These have been successful offences. If we were sitting here a year ago and, in fact, when I first appeared before this committee early last year, this was our major subject of concern. Well, they've begun to move," Holbrooke noted.
"I know that all of you feel that they ought to do more, and I understand that. We all hope that they will be able to find ways to deal with all of the militants in the frontier areas. But there are two full Pakistani divisions right now just in Swat, and they have pulled over a hundred thousand troops off their eastern border in order to deal with this," he said.
Noting that Pakistan is facing capacity issues, he said, "That's why, in addition to asking for the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation, we have asked for increases in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and other forms of military assistance."
Pakistan is undoubtedly the key to the region because of its location, because of its peculiar history, and in terms of its inter-relationship with Afghanistan, he argued.
"So while we understand that Pakistan and Afghanistan affect each other and are closely related, we also need to deal with Pakistan in and of itself as a critically important country for all the reasons you know -- nuclear weapons, its relations with its giant neighbour to the east, its weak economy which needs tremendous support," he said.
"That is why we're so hopeful that the Reconstruction Opportunity Zone (ROZ) Legislation will pass the Senate - it passed the House in the last session - because it is both symbolically and substantively important," he said in reference to a pending legislation in the Congress which if passed would allow duty free export of US products from certain parts of Pakistan to the US.
