US dismisses reports linking UNSC seat for India with Kashmir

[Frank Martin]

US dismisses reports linking
UNSC seat for India with
Kashmir
Press Trust of India, Updated:
October 02, 2010 08:26 IST
Washington: The US has
categorically rejected reports
that settlement of the Kashmir
issue is a pre-condition set by it
for endorsing India's bid for a
permanent seat on the UN
Security Council, saying there is
no link between the two.
"I don't see a link between the
two," State Department
spokesman P J Crowley said at
his daily news conference when
asked about a media report that
claimed that the Obama
administration has linked its
endorsement of a permanent
UN Security Council seat for
India with resolving the Kashmir
issue.
"We want to see India and
Pakistan work collectively
together to resolve tensions
regarding Kashmir. We
understand that India and a
number of countries and the
United States are all so
interested in UN reform,
including reforms within the
Security Council. Those are
conversations which are ongoing
with a wide range of countries,"
Crowley said.
A permanent UNSC seat for
India "is an issue that comes up
in our ongoing dialogue" with
New Delhi, he said. "I can't
predict whether it will come up
in November (when US President
Barack Obama visits India)."
Earlier in the day, visiting
National Security Adviser
Shivshankar Menon said as far
India is concerned things are
moving in the right direction for
it to get a permanent seat at the
UN Security Council.
"I think the world's view has
evolved, as far as I can see we
are heading in the right
direction. As far as we are
concerned in terms of distance
or the gap of the world's
attitude towards the UN Security
Council reform and what we
consider the desirable outcome
that gap has steadily narrowed,"
he said in response to a question
at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, a
Washington-based think-tank.
"And now there is meaningful
negotiations going on in the
United Nations itself on not just
Security Council reform but the
reform of the UN itself. That's
the real prospects. How the US
chooses to do this, when the US
chooses to do this, it is for the
US to decide. We have made our
views know, I do not think, we
are shy in a way, they (the US)
know what we expect," Menon
said.