'Pakistan Will Behave Better If We Become Closer To India'

Larry Pressler is upbeat as ever on closer Indo-US ties and hopes for closer co-operation

Updated on: 1 June 2001 12:00 am

What do you best know US senator Larry Pressler for? Pressler Amendmentof 1990, of course, which put certain conditions on US aid to Pakistan. So nosurprise really to find him "hailing" prime minister Vajpayee'sinitiative for talks with General Musharraf, but what is surprising is to findhim in Bangalore.

So what's he in Bangalore for? To attend Saturday's AGM of Nasdaq-listedInfosys Techologies Limited. Excerpts from his chat with the reporters inBangalore today:

"It's unfortunate that India and Pakistan have not resolved theirdispute. The whole world wants this conflict between India and Pakistan to end.There is a yearning in the world that India and Pakistan should settle theirdisputes somehow and put them behind them...This they will some day. Soonerrather than later."

"I am glad to see that the US is becoming much more pro-India. That willsend a signal that Pakistan will have to work with India. We can offset China bymoving closer to India. Pakistan will behave better if we become closer toIndia," he said, adding that he was delighted over the Indian governmentendorsing the National Missile Defence, proposed by President Bush, last month,and that New Delhi's response had been well received in the US.

"We (the US) have to upgrade...Diplomatically or otherwise the treatmentof India...The Bush administration is doing a good job, and India is alsoresponding very well," he said.

Asked if he saw a role for the US to mediate between India and Pakistan, hesaid it was up to India and Pakistan. "I don't really think this (dispute)can be solved by people from outside the region," he said, adding it shouldbe settled between the two countries.

Strongly advocating creation of a Free Trade Zone between the US and India onthe lines of the one existing between the US and Mexico, Canada, some Africancountries and Israel, he said it would greatly benefit the two democracies. Todrive home his point, he said India and the US have a "magicalsynergy" but expressed apprehensions as to how labour unions in India wouldreact to the proposal.

In a comment that's hardly encouraging for Indian information technologycompanies hit by economic lowdown in the US, he said the US economy was in for along and tough downturn and added that he did not see a turnaround in the nextthree years.

"It's not a recession but a big slowdown. It's not going to be adepression. Over the next three years, there is going to be substantially slow economic growth"