Indian Party Wants A Sikh Buffer State Between India, Pakistan
Sikh leaders say the US should learn from the US-Pakistan record that effective engagement is better than negligence. The Party wants Washington to reestablish the Sikh Desk in the US Embassy in New Delhi and open a US Consulate in the Sikh city of Amritsar. The Party believes that US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue is a welcome development and will indirectly help in balancing India’s behavior in the region. The Sikh leaders also called for nuclear parity between Pakistan and India.
NEW DELHI, India—The Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar’s), which is an Indian political party representing the Sikh nation, views US-Pakistan strategic dialogue in a very positive light. The Sikh leaders welcome the reduction in trust deficit between the United States and Pakistan because they believe that an Indian state that violates human rights, commits the genocide of Sikh peoples and of its other religious and ethnic minorities can only be restrained in the presence of strong neighbors such as Pakistan and China, says a press release received by the Daily Mail.
The SAD is hopeful that Washington will learn from the record of the US-Pakistan relationship and reopen its separate relationship with the Sikh nation so that a buffer Sikh state between what they called “a theocratic Hindu Indian State and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan will stabilize politics in South Asia and guarantee permanent peace in this region.”
In a statement, the party added, ‘To begin with, our party appeals to the US State Department to reopen the Sikh desk in its Embassy in New Delhi and open its Consulate in Amritsar so that Sikh-American relations improve.
“The Sikh buffer state would obviate tensions between the Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India which have since 1947 upset peace in this region. As far as nuclear concessions are concerned, “we think that there should be parity between these two countries as far as the 123 Nuclear Agreement is concerned, but IAEA must possess the power to check and inspect the nuclear arms industry of the two countries and the military nuclear reactors that make weapons should not be exempt of IAEA oversight”.—PR.
This is an edited version of the original report published by The Daily Mail of Pakistan. It is reproduced here under special arrangement.
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