INDIAN AF-PAK ENGAGEMENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 001722

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958:DECL:08/10/2019
TAGS: PARM PGOV PREL PTER PINS EAID MASS IN
SUBJECT: INDIAN AF-PAK ENGAGEMENT

REF: State 81259

Classified by Ambassador Tim Roemer for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary: When Ambassador Holbrooke visits New Delhi, his GOI
interlocutors - National Security Advisor Narayanan, Foreign
Secretary Rao, and Special Afghanistan Representative Lambah - will
be eager to discuss India's USD 1.2 billion dollar assistance program
in Afghanistan. They will likely reiterate India's interest in
increasing police and military assistance to Afghanistan. Our
overall strategy on Indian engagement in Afghanistan should be to
encourage greater coordination on all levels to avoid duplicative,
contradictory, and incompatible approaches and methods between Indian
assistance/training and that provided by the USG, NATO, and other
international partners. Ambassador Holbrooke's interlocutors will
likely express pessimism on prospects for a near-term thaw in
India-Pakistan relations, and will ask for continued USG pressure on
Pakistan to match CT rhetoric with deeds. Domestic political fallout
over PM Singh's July meeting with Pakistani PM Gilani and a
widespread perception of lingering Pakistani bad faith in cracking
down on terror directed at India combine to make resumption of the
"composite dialogue" difficult for the Singh government, though
contacts between Indian and Pakistani officials are continuing. End
Summary.

Urge More Coordination on Afghan Assistance
--------------


2. (C) India is proud of its ongoing "development partnership" with
post-Taliban Afghanistan that began in late 2001, and the GOI claims
that the sum of its performed and pledged assistance to date totals
USD 1.2 billion. When Ambassador Holbrooke visits New Delhi, he
should express appreciation for India's efforts, but should also
advocate increased coordination of Indian aid with the USG and other
international partners in order to maximize assistance impact and
eliminate duplicative efforts. Rather than ask India to provide
major additional civilian assistance at this time, he should seek
greater coordination so as to make existing assistance more
complementary. India has also expressed interest in increasing
military training and assistance, and in providing training for
Afghan police. India will likely move forward in providing this
assistance, with or without our blessing. As with civilian
assistance, the USG should thus urge India to coordinate
military/police assistance with us and NATO partners to avoid
contradictory approaches as we pursue a common goal of increasing
Afghan security capacity. We think the Indians will be amenable to
all such coordination.

Civilian Assistance
--------------


3. (SBU) India's civilian aid is channeled into three main areas:
infrastructure development, capacity building, and humanitarian aid.
MEA officials tell us the GOI relies heavily on Afghan government
input when devising project scope and location, and virtually all
Indian aid is administered by Afghan ministries or international
organizations. The showpiece of Indian infrastructure assistance is
a completed 218km road from Delaram, a town in Nimruz province near
the northwestern corner of Helmand, to Zaranj on the Iranian border
that was built to link up with a road running from the Iranian port
of Chahbahar (thus reducing land-locked Afghanistan's dependence on
Pakistani ports). A slickly-produced GOI brochure on India's aid to
Afghanistan notes that Indians and Afghans were killed in terrorist
attacks on road construction crews, thus highlighting the shared
sacrifice of both countries. In addition, India is currently working
on a hydroelectric dam in Herat province as well as other power
generation/transmission projects; has refurbished telecommunications
infrastructure equipment in eleven provinces; and is constructing the
new Afghan parliament building.


4. (SBU) In order to develop Afghan human resource capacity, India
provides 675 annual Indian university scholarships to Afghan
students. It also places 20 Indian technical advisors in key Afghan
ministries and provides short-term training in India to 675 Afghan
civil servants. As an example of possible coordination, we suggest
that we work with India to expand an existing regional energy program
in which the USG funds 250 Afghan engineers to train in India (we
could also expand the program to include water specialists). India's
humanitarian assistance focuses on food aid, supplying high-protein
biscuits to 2 million Afghan school children daily that are
distributed by the World Food Program. During a January 2009 visit
to Delhi by Afghan President Karzai, Prime Minister Singh announced
with considerable fanfare a gift to Afghanistan of 250,000 metric
tons of Indian wheat. Nearly nine months later, the wheat remains
undelivered. USG attempts to persuade Pakistan to allow shipment of
the wheat through Pakistan have foundered, while the Indians and
Afghans have not come to terms on the threshold issue of who will pay
transportation costs, regardless of whether the wheat is shipped
through Pakistan or Iran, in spite of USG efforts to broker an
agreement. Another area of increased coordination could be
discussing the feasibility of a pilot program between India,
Pakistan, and Afghanistan that would ease transit through Pakistan of
Afghan dried fruit and nuts to a potentially large Indian market.

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Police/Military Assistance
--------------


5. (C) In an April 8 meeting with Ambassador Holbrooke, Indian NSA
Narayanan stated that India was interested in providing training for
the Afghan police. Although the Indians are aware of USG misgivings
regarding such training, Indian interlocutors may raise the issue
again. MEA officials tell us they have discussed with Afghan
officials the possibility of training Afghan police women and bomb
disposal specialists, but no large-scale training has yet taken
place. Since it appears likely that such training will eventually
take place, we should urge coordination with the USG and NATO
partners so as to maximize efficiency and prevent contradictory
training approaches. Another type of training that Indians are
well-qualified to offer is professional leadership training to
mid-level police officers, a critical element in overall police force
development that would complement existing efforts.


6. (C) India is also intent on increasing its military assistance to
Afghanistan. India currently provides a variety of training to
approximately 100 ANA personnel and that number is expected to rise.
India has offered its Advanced Light Helicopter to Afghanistan as
well as pilot training to the new Afghan air force. The GOI has
provided cars and trucks to the Afghan military. Once again, we
should encourage coordination to better ensure harmony with US/NATO
training and assistance.

Testy Times in India-Pak Relations
--------------


7. (C) Events in recent weeks have combined to deepen Indian
antipathy and suspicion toward Pakistan, and may give Prime Minister
Singh additional pause to reflect upon the domestic political costs
he will incur if he continues to be forward-leaning on resumption of
the "composite dialogue" with Pakistan. Fallout over a joint
statement that came out of Singh's July 16 Sharm al-Sheikh meeting
with Pakistani PM Gilani has provided a headache for his government,
a godsend for his political opponents, and fodder for India's
chattering classes. Even more significantly for Singh, his position
at Sharm met with significant dissent from some within the ruling
coalition, including heavyweights like Finance Minister Mukherjee.
Congress boss Sonia Gandhi appeared content to let the Singh
bash-fest play out for several days before she cut off criticism from
Congress cadres, and even then some Congress MPs were hesitant to
back up Singh. He and key GOI officials were grilled relentlessly by
the opposition in Parliament over joint statement language that
"action on terrorism should not be linked" to the India-Pak dialogue,
as well as a cryptic line stating that "Gilani mentioned that
Pakistan has some information on threats in Baluchistan." Looking to
rebound from their party's poor showing in May national elections,
BJP leaders (joined by numerous media commentators) seized upon the
joint statement to support their claim of Singh's weakness and
ineptitude in dealing with Pakistan and to accuse Singh of kowtowing
to USG pressure. MEA officials have conceded privately to us that
inclusion of the reference to Baluchistan was ill-advised; MEA Af-Pak
Joint Secretary TCA Raghavan ascribed it to the PM's being "very
tired" in Sharm.


8. (C) While divulging that contacts between Indian and Pakistani
officials are continuing (for example, mQtings at the Foreign
Minister and Foreign Secretary level are expected to take place on
the margins of UNGA),MEA's Raghavan told us that the major obstacle
to resumption of "meaningful dialogue" is Pakistan's unwillingness to
"take responsibility" for terror against India by cracking down on
perpetrators of past attacks and preventing future attacks. Raghavan
declined to spell out more specific expectations of the GOP, noting
that articulation of such demands by India would mean Pakistan would
never fulfill them. Recent events have hardened a widespread public
perception of Pakistani bad faith in this regard. The detailed July
20 court confession by Mumbai terror suspect Ajmal Kasab confirmed
oft-stated Indian assertion that the November 2008 Mumbai attacks
were planned in Pakistan and perpetrated by Pakistani nationals.
Indians were outraged by an August 3 Pakistani court decision to
adjourn indefinitely the case of LeT/JuD leader Hafiz Saeed.


9. (C) Even positive steps by Pakistan, such as the detention of an
additional suspect in the Mumbai attacks, Jamil Ahmed, have been
undercut by subsequent public statements by Pakistan that dossiers
provided by the Indian government purporting to establish Saeed's
involvement in terror attacks against India were scanty and legally
inadmissible. The widely shared perception here is that Pakistan has
taken few steps on its own to investigate the links between LeT/JuD
leader Saeed and Mumbai attack suspects who have been arrested by
Pakistani authorities. Furthermore, many Indians assert that these
steps - meager and superficial at best, to the Indian eye - were
taken only because Pakistani national Kasab survived the attack, thus
making it impossible for Islamabad to issue its standard blanket
denial of any connection to Pakistan.


10. (U) Embassy coordinator for Af-Pak issues and point of contact
for Ambassador Holbrooke's upcoming visit to India is Political

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Officer John Rath. His contact details are as follows: email -
rathjt@state.gov ; office telephone -(91)(11)2419-8657 and cell
phone-(91)9910-890-106.

ROEMER