INDIA LIVES IN A VERY TOUGH NEIGHBORHOOD: US senator BIDEN

US not to resolve Kashmir imbroglio

Press Trust of India

Washington, December 4: Democrat Senator Joseph Biden, the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said it is not for the US to resolve the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan.

Asked if he would advocate that US use its good offices to resolve the Kashmir imbroglio when he takes over the chairmanship of the committee next month, he said he would not bring the question up "without consultation with India first." "I don't think we the United States can determine (how it should be resolved)," he said in an interview to India Abroad.

He said Washington should use what positive pressures it could to move in the direction in which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was moving and "get some accommodation, but that (issue) is not ours to resolve."

To a question about the US having made India an exception to the non-proliferation regime by signing the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, Biden said, "I am often asked, well, why India and not Pakistan and Iran? and I say ...India has been a partner and not promoting proliferation.

"Pakistan and AQ Khan have done more damage to the world than any single country (without starting a) war... India lives in a very tough neighbourhood. So the idea that India, with China to its north and Pakistan to its west, would not become a nuclear power is just not a reasonable expectation."INDIA