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US law-makers urge Clinton to appoint special Kashmir envoy

A group of 46 members of the United States House of Representatives has urged President Bill Clinton to step up his efforts to help resolve the Kashmir issue, including appointing a special envoy.

The law-makers praised Clinton's pledge in July that he would take a 'personal interest' in promoting dialogue between the two states.

In a letter to Clinton, they said, ''The United States should help break the stalemate over Kashmir to reduce the chance of a nuclear war in the Asian subcontinent.''

The members urged Clinton to ''consider the appointment of a special envoy who could recommend to you ways of ascertaining the wishes of the Kashmiri people and reaching a just and lasting settlement of the Kashmiri issue.''

They also suggested that Clinton ''propose strengthening the UN Military Observers Group to monitor the situation along the Line of Control''.

Assistant Secretary of State Karl Inderfurth, had in an interview this week, rejected an earlier proposal by a group of US senators for a special envoy.

''We want to be supportive of their (India and Pakistan's) process. We believe we can do that and should do that without the appointment of a special envoy,'' he said.

The House of Representatives' International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman last night urged Clinton to reject the demand made by some Congressmen, seeking the appointment of a special envoy for Kashmir.

Gilman (Republican), backed by Sam Gejdenson (Democrat), also opposed their plea for strengthening of the UN Military Observers' Group for India and Pakistan to monitor the LoC in Kashmir.

The demands were made in a joint letter, released by Congressmen Dan Burton (Republican) and David Bonior (Democrat) earlier in the day. Hardly had the letter reached the White House, when Gilman and Gejdenson made the counter move.

''It has been a cornerstone foreign policy principle of your administration and past administrations, consistently re-emphasised on a number of occasions and most recently in a statement by you on July 4 during the Kargil crisis, that the best chance for the successful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir issue lies in bilateral negotiations and constructive dialogue between India and Pakistan,'' Gilman and Gejdenson said in their letter to the president.

''To inject a special envoy into this situation, without the willingness of both sides, would fracture the current peace process,'' it said, adding, ''such a step, we believe, would act as a major, unnecessary, and counter-productive attempt to substitute a US presence for the bilateral dialogue process agreed to by India and Pakistan in the Simla agreement of 1972 and reaffirmed in the February 1999 Lahore Declaration of the prime ministers of both nations.''

''Consequently, instead of appointing a special envoy we should be urging Pakistan to stop sending infiltrators across the Line of Control into India. This would result in a far better atmosphere for the resumption of productive bilateral negotiations between India and Pakistan,'' the letter said.

UNI

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