The Pakistani government voiced "serious concern and strong disappointment" yesterday at US backing for a permanent seat for arch-rival India on the UN Security Council.

A federal cabinet resolution "expressed its serious concern and strong disappointment on the decision of the United States to support a permanent seat for India on the UN Security Council," a foreign ministry statement said.

"ft is incomprehensible that the US has sought to support India, whose credentials with respect to observing UN charter principles and international law are at best chequered," the resolution said.

Addressing the Indian parliament earlier this week, visiting US President Barack Obama received rapturous applause when he said he looked forward to welcoming India as a permanent member ofareformedUN Security Council.

Islamabad and Washington are allies in the war against terrorism, but their relationship is strained, while nucleararmed Pakistan and India are entrenched rivals.

The symbolism, trade deals and fine words of Barack Obama's courtship of India should be Pakistan's wake-up call to fix its economy and eradicate Islamist militancy to ward off isolation, analysts say.

The US president declared India a world power, the India-US alliance "one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century" and unveiled deals worth 10 billion dollars designed to create 50,000 American jobs in an ailing economy.

Going further than any US president before, he backed India's quest for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, although with no immediate prospect of reform and likely strong Chinese opposition, it was a largely symbolic move.

Just weeks after Pakistan's latest round of "strategic dialogue" with the US in abid to overcome mistrust, the warm embrace between Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stood in stark

contrast.

"Pakistanis have to be more realistic on understanding India's growing international role," political analyst Hasan Askari told AFP.

"India is investing in the United States while our economy is in bad shape. There is no Pakistani investment in the West, very little in the Middle East. We ask for money from the United States, while India does not."

Indian deals will funnel 10 billion dollars into the US economy, while under a US Congress bill American taxpayers fork out 1.5 billion a year for development in Pakistan with promises of another two billion dollars in military assistance.

While Obama's visit reflects the shift in power to emerging nations since the financial crisis, Pakistan is a client state with a Taliban and al-Qaeda presence plotting to killUS soldiers and fanningthe war in Afghanistan.

Pakistan, whose status as a nuclear power still alarms the West, has been stifled by decades of military rule, recession and Islamisation.