India may press for financial monitoring, terror state designation for Pakistan

WASHINGTON: India will press for international financial monitoring and a state sponsor of terrorism designation for Pakistan if Islamabad does not address concerns about its use of terrorism as a policy instrument, New Delhi has indicated, amid apprehension in the western commentariat about the region becoming a nuclear flashpoint.

Pushing back against concern about a nuclear face-off in the region, New Delhi has also conveyed to various interlocutors that Pakistan is responsible for the current tension in the region and India will not be browbeaten or blackmailed by Pakistan’s use of terrorism under nuclear cover.

"There is a new norm here…. We are going to react (if there are terrorist attacks). We’ve called Pakistan’s nuclear bluff… it will not work,” a senior Indian official said in a wide-ranging background briefing on developments following the Pulwama terrorist attack, while claiming broad US and international support for New Delhi’s stand.

The briefing came amid a surge of commentary and editorials in the US press about the region returning to a nuclear flashpoint even as the US efforts for a nuclear détente with North Korea is stalling.

The New York Times editorial board led with a comment headlined "This Is Where a Nuclear Exchange Is Most Likely. (It's Not North Korea.)" while the Wall Street Journal commentary was headlined "India and Pakistan Are Flirting With Nuclear Disaster." The LA Times came up with "Why the next round of India-Pakistan hostilities could be even scarier" and Bloomberg said "India and Pakistan Are a Brewing Nuclear Nightmare."

But New Delhi is maintaining that the crisis stems from Pakistan’s unrelenting use of terrorism to subvert the political unrest in Kashmir, which, without interference and injection of terrorism from Pakistan, could be settled internally. "If instigation ends, terrorism will end," the official said, referring to suggestions that there is also a homegrown insurgency in Kashmir.

The briefing also indicated that New Delhi is preparing to press the US and international financial institutions for punitive steps against Pakistan if Islamabad does not offer CREDIBLE VERIFIABLE AND IMMEDIATE action against terrorist groups. The official expressed distrust about Pakistan’s actions in this regard over the past week, saying such commitments have been made in the past and India remains sceptical because they are never carried through and once international attention is off, Pakistan returns to its patronage of terrorism.

Specifically, New Delhi appears to be preparing grounds for opposing an IMF loan package that Islamabad has sought to shore up its parlous financial situation if Islamabad showed bad faith in rolling up terror networks. India may also press the State Department to designate Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism (a designation it came close to in 1993) if Pakistan does not change.

"We are really moving in that direction…if this continues for long…there is enough case for designating Pakistan," the official said after a preamble in which he described Pakistan as "a hub of global terrorism for 20 years" hosting 132 terrorists and 22 organisations proscribed by United Nations.

Expressing itself against another IMF bailout, when none of the past packages have resulted in any improvement in Pakistan’s economy, India is arguing that a "disproportionate amount of Pakistan’s finance, more than 30 per cent, goes to its military…including for the expansion of it’s nuclear arsenal."

The official also expressed satisfaction that the US and the international had backed India’s stance in the current face-off, starting with acknowledging New Delhi’s retaliation to the Pulwama terror attack as a "counter-terrorism action."