The Obama administration has made it clear that it is not in the mandate of U S Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke to deal with the Kashmir issue, thus allaying India's fears of a third party intervention in its ongoing tension with Pakistan.
''His (Holbrooke's) mandate is to go out and try to help bring stability to Afghanistan, working closely with Pakistan to try to deal with the situation in the FATA region,'' acting State Department spokesman Robert Wood said on Tuesday.
The spokesman said, ''With regard to Kashmir, I think our policy is well-known. I think India has some very clear views as to what it wants to do vis-àvis, dealing with the Kashmir issue, as well as the Pakistanis. But with regard to Ambassador Holbrooke's mission, as I said, is to deal strictly with the Pakistan-Afghanistan situation,'' Wood said.
When asked whether Holbrooke would play any role ''if there are heightened tensions again over, the Mumbai incident,'' the spokesman said, ''I don't want to speculate in terms of what he may or may not do, but his brief is focused solely on Afghanistan.'' This statement made it clear that the new US administration has no intention to mediate in the Kashmir issue, virtually accepting India's longstanding position to settle the issue bilaterally with Islamabad without any third party intervention.
Certain utterances of President Barack Obama during an election campaign led to the impression that his administration might try to mediate between New Delhi and Islamabad on the Kashmir issue.
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