Jack Straw

LONDON: Intense diplomatic efforts by Britain and the United States prevented India and Pakistan from going to war four years ago, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Tuesday.

The Foreign Office, headed by Straw, and the U.S. State Department, under then secretary of state Colin Powell, worked tirelessly to defuse the standoff between the countries over Kashmir, he said.

Mr. Straw was responding to a question about hopes for a peaceful settlement of the Kashmir issue following a speech in London to British diplomats.

"In early 2002 the anxiety internationally was whether Pakistan and India would move towards a conventional war — after all they have had three of those — which in turn could turn into a nuclear war," Mr. Straw recalled.

"If that had happened the consequences for the world would have been catastrophic. It took very active diplomacy by the United States and the United Kingdom — and it was those two countries and bluntly no others."

Mr. Straw said he and Gen. Powell were heavily involved in negotiations with the neighbours, travelling repeatedly to the region over three months. "In the end, Pakistan and India looked over the abyss, saw starkly that they simply couldn't start another conventional war, where it might lead and pulled back," Mr. Straw said.

Mr. Straw admitted Britain's historical failings in its two former colonies.

But he also underscored the importance of diplomacy, at a time when the international community is struggling to engage with Iran over its disputed nuclear programme.

The benefits for the whole world from having British and the U.S. diplomats on the ground in India and Pakistan four years ago was huge, Mr. Straw said.

If "people ever say to you: `What is a diplomat for,' say a diplomat is partly for stopping wars and if you want to know about a war that diplomats stopped, British and American diplomats, yes, backed by their secretaries of state, stopped a war," he said.

``I say this without any false modesty, if we had not together — State Department, Foreign Office, Powell and myself — been involved, there could have been, would have been a war.'' — AFP

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail