Chronologies
US - India
Chronology from Apr 2001 to Dec 2001
: President Bush telephones Indian and Pakistani leaders. According to a White House spokesman, President Bush asks Pakistan to “take additional strong and decisive measures to eliminate the extremists who seek to harm India, undermine Pakistan, and provoke war.”
: President Bush praises Pakistan’s decision to arrest 50 militants and calls on India to recognize favorably Pakistan’s action.
Dec. 28, 2001 India announces the closing of transportation links with Pakistan. Pakistan responds in kind.
: India reportedly moves short-range ballistic missiles, technically capable of carrying nuclear warheads, closer to the border with Pakistan.
: EAM Singh rejects Secretary Powell’s suggestion that India and Pakistan engage in dialogue, saying “It’s not practical or possible at this point and I’ve told him.”
: The U.S. places the LET and the JEM on the State Department’s terrorism list. Secretary Powell, in making the announcement, said that the two groups were responsible for “numerous terrorist attacks in India and Pakistan.”
: Pakistan’s spokesman Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi confirms that authorities have detained Maulana Masood Azhar, leader of the JEM. India has called for him to be extradited to India to stand trial.
: LET closes its office in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
: LET’s leader, a Pakistani national, announces he will step down in favor of a Kashmiri.
: Pakistan freezes the LET’s bank accounts. India accuses LET of involvement in the Dec. 13 attack on India’s Parliament.
: India recalls its envoy to Pakistan for the first time in 30 years and ends bus and train service between the two countries.
: President Bush says “I call upon President Musharraf to take decisive action against Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammed, and other terrorist organizations, their leaders, finances, and activities.”
: The U.S. and Indian navies conduct a joint search and rescue operation in the Arabian Sea, the first joint military exercise since sanctions were imposed following India’s nuclear tests in May 1998.
: Five armed men attack India’s Parliament building in New Delhi. A total of 14 persons are killed including all five of the attackers.
Dec. 12, 2001 President Bush, in a major address on U.S. defense and anti-terrorism policies, says that “India and the U.S. are increasingly aligned on a range of issues even as the U.S. works closely with Pakistan.”
: India tests an improved short-range, nuclear-capable Prithvi missile.
: Director of the Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State Richard Haass visits New Delhi.
: The U.S. and India reinitiate the Defense Policy Group (DPG) after a five-year lapse. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith leads the U.S. delegation. A Joint Technical Group meeting, bringing together officials from the defense research and production facilities of the two countries, is also held on the sidelines of the DPG.
: USCINCPAC Blair visits India to discuss defense cooperation, Adm. Blair says that joint U.S.-India military exercises might resume in the “near future, weeks and months, not years.”
: PM Vajpayee meets with President Bush in Washington. The two leaders announce several measures to enhance relations, including the expansion and intensification of the U.S.-India Economic Dialogue through greater private sector interaction in the fields of energy and environment, a joint cyber-terrorism initiative, and the start of discussion on civil space cooperation.
: The USS O’BRIEN, patrolling the Arabian Sea in support of “Operation Enduring Freedom,” visits the Indian port of Chennai.
: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meets Defense Minister George Fernandes in India.
: Secretary of State Colin L. Powell visits India; India and the U.S. sign a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty to facilitate cooperation on law enforcement and counter-terrorism.
: PM Vajpayee writes President Bush expressing “understandable anger” at the attack and “Pakistan must understand that there is a limit to the patience of the people of India.”
: EAM Singh meets senior Bush administration officials in Washington.
: A car bomb attack is conducted outside the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly building killing 29 people.
: Responding to a report of a U.S. military transport aircraft landing and refueling in Delhi, India’s opposition Congress Party says, “We should not allow Indian soil to be used by foreign troops to attack a third country.”
: NSA Brajesh Mishra meets U.S. counterpart Condoleezza Rice in Washington.
: India welcomes U.S. decision to freeze the bank accounts and assets of 26 terrorist organizations but expresses hope that the list will be expanded as investigations go further.
: President Bush signs a Presidential Determination waiving sanctions on India and Pakistan.
: India’s Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, in a nationally televised address, says “I have assured President Bush that we stand ready to cooperate in the investigations into this crime and to strengthen our partnership in leading international efforts to ensure that terrorism never succeeds again.”
: Terrorists attack the U.S.
: Indian Ambassador to the U.S. Lalit Mansingh meets Adm. Blair in Hawaii to discuss military cooperation possibilities.
: Sen. Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a letter to President Bush, writes that sanctions against India have “outlived their usefulness and may paradoxically by impeding nonproliferation efforts rather than aiding them.” Biden also emphasized that his call was for lifting sanctions only applied to the post-1998 Glenn amendment stipulations.
: Asst. Secretary Rocca visits New Delhi.
Aug. 8-10, 2001: USTR Robert Zoellick meets with Commerce Minister Maran in India. The two officials renew the U.S.-India Working Group on Trade. U.S. also grants India preferential trade access, enabling India to access trade worth about $540 million.
Aug. 17, 2001: A report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom criticizes India for its treatment of religious minorities and recommends a linkage between the protection of religious freedom and economic cooperation.
Aug. 21, 2001: Asst. Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Peter Rodman says “Our relationship with Pakistan is valuable to us. And I don’t think this administration is going to lose sight of that.” He also predicts that “India is not going to become an ally of the United States. I think India values its independence. It values its nonalignment. So I don’t think anybody should expect that India is going to collude with us.”
: Army Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), visits India. He becomes the highest ranking U.S. military officer to visit India since the May 1998 nuclear tests and the first chairman of the JCS to ever visit India.
: India announces that the U.S. Army will participate in its Counter Insurgency Jungle Warfare School.
: National Security Advisor and Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Brajesh Mishra holds discussions with the Bush administration in Washington.
: Second meeting of the Joint Working Group on UN Peacekeeping is held in Washington. Special importance is “attached to the development of institutional linkages between the two countries on education and training on peacekeeping issues…”
: Third Meeting of the Joint U.S.-India Counterterrorism Working Group is held in Washington.
: Indian Foreign Secretary Chokila Iyer, in Washington for consultations with Under Secretary of State of Political Affairs Marc Grossman, notes the U.S. has so far not labeled the LET a terrorist group even though the United Kingdom has already done so.
: Christina Rocca, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia-designate, says “[m]y personal perception is that these sanctions have outlived their usefulness and that we need to find a new framework, and a new way to accomplish our nuclear concerns and get rid of the sanctions. The sanctions have to go.”
: The U.S. Energy Task Force led by Vice President Richard Cheney suggests “U.S. energy and state secretaries should work with India’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to help it maximize its domestic oil and production.” It also suggests that sanctions should be reconsidered for countries important to energy security.
: India is named as one of 52 countries of “primary concern” on a U.S. money laundering watch list.
: Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage visits India to discuss missile defense.
: India begins its largest military exercises (Complete Victory) in 13 years along the Pakistan border.
: India responds favorably to many elements of President Bush’s missile defense speech at the National Defense University saying the speech is “highly significant and far-reaching.” “India believes that there is a strategic and technological inevitability in stepping away from a world that is held hostage by the doctrine of mutually assured destruction to a cooperative, defensive transition that is underpinned by further cuts and a de-alert of nuclear forces.”
: India’s Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha meets U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill in Washington on the sidelines of the annual World Bank/IMF meetings.
: The annual U.S. report Patterns of Global Terrorism 2000 does not declare Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism and the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) is not designated as a foreign terrorist organization. However, two other Kashmir militant groups are listed in the category of “other terrorist organizations.” Pakistan is criticized for increasing its support to the Taliban and for providing assistance to militant groups active in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
: The Bush administration names India and 11 other countries under the Super 301 legislation as unfair traders. The notification is part of annual review conducted by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR).
: Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Alan Eastham visits India.
: External Affairs Minister and Defense Minister Jaswant Singh meets with the Bush administration for talks on economic issues, proliferation, trade, and regional and international security.
: Forty-seven Republican and Democratic Congressmembers sign a letter to President Bush stating “it is essential that the U.S. re-engage India in a policy dialogue to make possible the lifting of sanctions.”