US president-elect’s ‘no lift’ worries india

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US president-elect’s ‘no lift’ worries india

* Obama’s phone calls to allies including Zardari even more disturbing for Delhi

NEW DELHI: United States president-elect Barack Obama putting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh low on the list of world leaders he has telephoned since Thursday, has become a cause of concern to India.

The Indian government’s pretension of India and the US as ‘natural allies’ in the congratulatory messages by President Pratibha Patil and Dr Manmohan Singh fell flat when Obama’s aides said the first nine calls on Thursday were made to ‘US allies’.

The concerns have intensified considering the fact that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari figured among the 15 heads of state Obama has spoken to until now.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev is the only other leader of an important state who has not been called back by the US president-elect. Obama spoke to the leaders of Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Mexico and South Korea on the first day, all of which are known US allies.

India expected Obama to call Singh at the latest by Friday night, after finishing with the allies, but the expectation was belied.

Besides Zardari, Obama rang up five others – Saudi Arabian leader King Abdullah, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Polish President Lech Kaczynski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and Spanish President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

Presently, Singh is on a 3-day tour of Oman and Qatar and the earliest he can speak to Obama is on Tuesday when he returns to New Delhi. Insiders say Obama might have been annoyed with the way the Indian government deliberately omitted a crucial paragraph from a letter he had written to Singh during his US visit in September. Obama had asserted in the letter that the Indo-US relations would not spiral down under the next US administration and Congress.

The controversial paragraph not publicised, for obvious reasons, talked of Obama forcing a ban on the nuclear tests through the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and halting the fissile material production by India. “I will work to secure ratification of the international treaty banning nuclear weapons testing at the earliest, and then launch a major diplomatic initiative to ensure its entry into force. I will also pursue negotiations on a verifiable, multilateral treaty to end production of fissile material for nuclear weapons,” Obama had written. iftikhar gilani

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...008_pg7_11