Rao says Pakistan’s military “hypnotically obsessed”: WikiLeaks

Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao.

Dawn

NEW DELHI: Pakistan’s military is ”hypnotically obsessed” with India’s military, officials in New Delhi told US officials in comments made public in a leaked US diplomatic cable released Friday.

Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao told US Senator John Kerry earlier this year that Indo-Pakistani peace talks could not move ahead until Islamabad did more to dismantle the allegedly Pakistan-based terrorist infrastructure that New Delhi says supports anti-Indian militants.

The talks have been on hold since the 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai blamed on Pakistan-based militants.

The talks ”can’t just be switched on,” Rao told Kerry during a February visit to New Delhi, insisting that Islamabad had not yet done enough to prove it was serious about cracking down on terrorism.

Speaking to Kerry just before he flew to Islamabad for meetings there with top Pakistani officials, Rao also predicted he would be told there that India’s military doctrine was a continuing threat.

The Pakistani military is ”hypnotically obsessed” with India’s military, Rao said in the cable, which was marked ”confidential” and obtained by WikiLeaks. It was released by the British newspaper The Guardian.

The US has repeatedly urged the two nations to improve their ties. Better relations between India and Pakistan would help Washington in its war in Afghanistan, because it would allow Islamabad to shift troops away from the Indian border and toward its western frontier to fight militants there.