Rupee News

The first week of July was a nice pleasant week in Washington DC.  It wasn’t the summer heat that created the uncomfortableness among the Bharatis who were present in Washington. It was the mention of the “K” word by the veteran specialist Mr. Tim Roemer.

The silent and latent “explosion” had implication beyond the Potomac. The Obama Administration wants to appoint Tim Roemer as the American ambassador to Delhi. Usually this sort of confirmation is expected to be a smooth affair. It was. However Ambassador Designate Tim Roemer surely did raise some eyebrows and create a lot of tension during the hearing held by The Foreign Relations Committee.

WASHINGTON – The Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously voted Wednesday to confirm former Indiana Congressman Tim Roemer to be ambassador to India.

During his confirmation hearing, Roemer, who has been picked by President Barak Obama, described Kashmir as an “extremely sensitive hotspot”, saying he favoured Washingnton encouraging Pakistan-India talks towards resolution of the decades-old conflict.

The full Senate could vote on Roemer’s nomination by the end of the week.

Committee Chairman John Kerry, a Democrat, praised Senator Richard Lugar, the panel’s top Republican, for his help in moving quickly on the nomination.

Lugar said Tuesday that he shares “the president’s confidence in Tim Roemer to lead our diplomatic efforts in India at this formative moment in history.”

A member of the 9/11 Commission, Roemer is president of the Center for National Policy, which focuses on national security issues.

Replying to a question on Kashmir, Roemer said, “I think it is an issue. It’s a delicate and sensitive issue. It’s one that — we would diplomatically encourage that the Pakistanis and the Indians first of all improve their relationship, their ties, their trade, their exchanges, to foster peace and more prosperity in that area between their two countries.

“Secondly, I think it’s important to try to make sure that, where we can, in front of the scenes, behind the scenes, through diplomatic channels, encourage them to talk about this issue and hopefully resolve it between their two countries,” Roemer said.

Bharat considers Kashmir an internal matter and does not accept international advice on the matter. However every major player in the Obama Administration including the president himself has not only mentioned the “K” word, the rumors on the street are that intensive diplomacy has been going on to goad Bharat into moving its forces out of Kashmir and away from the Pakistan border.

As soon as Delhi advertises the myth that all is well in Srinagar, the city explodes in anger against the Bharti occupation. The most recent protests left the entire vally in a curfew defying Delhi’s claims that all is well in Kashmir.

Rather than repeating vague U.S. policy formations like “any solution must take into account the will of the Kashmiri people,” that do little to build peace in the region and risk raising false expectations about the potential for U.S. mediation, the U.S. should quietly encourage Indian and Pakistani officials to develop a different security paradigm for the region. This new paradigm would allow them to focus on containing dangerous non-state actors that threaten stability in both countries. Lisa Curtis is Senior Research Fellow for South Asia in the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation.