Senior US envoy Richard Armitage heads to South Asia today for 'nurturing hopes' of dialogue between India and Pakistan.
Deputy Secretary of State Armitage will visit New Delhi, Kabul and Afghanistan between May 5 and 11, on a mission also designed to further the US antiterror campaign and highlight Washington's commitment to Afghanistan.
Unlike previous US missions to South Asia, including those by Armitage, Secretary of State Colin Powell and other senior officials, Armitage's sojourn begins at a time of rare optimism in India-Pakistan relations.
In a surprising move, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said Friday that New Delhi would restore civil aviation and diplomatic links with Pakistan, which were severed as tensions boiled dangerously close to war 17 months ago.
Pakistan welcomed the move as "a gesture of hope," resolved to return the favour and its Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali invited Vajpayee to hold talks.
The developments delighted the United States, which has in recent years mounted desperate measures to head off the prospect of a disastrous war between two nuclear-armed rivals on hair trigger alert.
"I am very pleased with developments on the subcontinent over the last several weeks," Powell said at a press conference during a brief
visit to Albania on Friday.
"All this is very, very promising at a time when people were beginning to wonder whether or not they were going back to the potential for conflict," Powell said.
The United States has been apply firm pressure for months to bring India and Pakistan back from the brink of confrontation and is now happy to see action from the parties.
"Prime Minister Vajpayee has shown extra statesmanship in taking these bold steps, and we applaud India and Pakistan for continuing to move forward away from confrontation," said State Department deputy spokesman Philip Reeker.
Powell has been burning up the telephone lines in frequent calls to his counterparts in the two countries and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
The United States is in a unique position to intervene between the two rivals as both prize their relationship with Washington as the centerpiece of their foreign policy.
Pakistan emerged as a key US ally after the September 11, 2001 attacks and sided with Washington as it routed the Taliban and its guest al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
It is basking in President George W Bush's latest volley of praise, after its authorities snared prominent al-Qaeda suspects in Karachi last week.
India, which sees itself as a natural US ally through its common democratic heritage with Washington, has been developing
a close economic and hi-tech relationship with US companies, and its diaspora is emerging is gaining influence in domestic US politics.
But though tensions seem to have dimmed in South Asia, the core issue remains unsolved -- the fate of the Muslim-majority Himalayan state of Kashmir, split between Pakistan and India and claimed in full by both.
During a visit to Pakistan last June, Armitage secured a promise from Musharraf to halt infiltrations of Islamic rebels across the Line of Control from the Pakistani zone into the Indian zone to fight Indian rule.
The pledge was pivotal in cooling tensions and ultimately led to both sides withdrawing troops from their international border.
India accuses Musharraf of breaking that pledge, alleging infiltration resumed after a brief lull. Pakistan says it is powerless to completely halt all infiltration, and says India's estimated 700,000 troops in Kashmir should prevent the rebels coming in.
Another senior State Department official Richard Haass said last month that Washington was "disappointed" and "frustrated" that infiltration had not ceased.
Armitage will start his South Asian diplomacy in Europe, holding a meeting in London with Indian National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra, as he heads on to Washington for his own high level visit.