US Seeks India's Help on Burma

Mukherjee was in Washington for a two-day visit to the US—his first in the capacity of India’s foreign minister—to discuss issues related to Indo-US relations, in particular the ongoing deadlock over the civilian nuclear cooperation agreement between the two countries.

The agreement, when signed into law, would give India access to US nuclear technology for civilian purposes, but India is not able to finalize the agreement because of opposition within its multi-party coalition government led by Prime Minister Manhmohan Singh.

While little progress was made on this issue, Bush Administration officials during their meetings with Mukherjee tried to impress upon him the need for India to use its influence with the Burmese military government to push it to respect the basic standards of the international community.

“We have had an opportunity to talk about the deepening of our economic ties, of our defense cooperation, and the deepening of our dialogue about regional issues. We had, for instance, a discussion this morning concerning Tibet and the troubling circumstances there, as well as on Burma,” Rice told reporters soon after her meeting with Mukherjee at the State Department on Monday.

The Indian foreign minister, on his part, explained India’s position and the steps it has taken with respect to Burma. Besides Rice, Mukherjee also met US President George W Bush and National Security Adviser Steve Hadley.

“During our course of discussion, the Myanmar [Burma] issue came up and so far as Myanmar is concerned, we have explained our position, what we have done to persuade the Myanmar authorities to extend cooperation to special envoy Gambari and what steps they have initiated to carry on political reforms and the national reconciliation process in that country,” Mukherjee told reporters at the end of his US trip.

Referring to the steps taken by Burma, Mukherjee noted the junta has appointed a special representative to carry on a dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi.

“It is our persistent suggestion to the Myanmar authorities to please ensure that all important stakeholders, including Aung San Suu Kyi, are fully involved in the process of political reforms and national reconciliation,” he said.

“At the same time, we are suggesting them to maintain peace and tranquility among the large number of ethnic entities who are in Myanmar,” Mukherjee said.

“Therefore, this is one area where we are in touch with Myanmar authorities and when the Myanmar foreign minister visited India, I had detailed discussions with him. Gambari also discussed with us; we are in touch with others, and we shared this information with the authorities with whom we had discussions here,” he said.

When asked about India’s supplying military arms to the junta, which are used by the authorities against its own people, Mukherjee said:  “So far as our arms supplies to Myanmar are concerned, we do not supply any arms. India is not a very major arms supplier to any other country.”