External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, left, with Secretary of State Colin Powell at the State Department, in Washington, D.C., on June 10. (Photo: Rajan Devadas)

WASHINGTON: External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh has said India will reconsider its earlier stand against sending troops to Iraq but made no specific commitment on the sensitive issue.

Speaking to reporters at a stake-out before the State Department on June 10 following an hour-long meeting with his U.S. counterpart Colin Powell, Singh recalled that India had in the past rejected sending troops to Iraq and said the new U.N. Security Council resolution had changed the situation.

Singh, who was in Washington for the funeral of former President Ronald Reagan, said the Congress Party-led coalition government, which favored the U.N. having a “central responsibility” in Iraq, would “revisit the issue.”

“There’s a resolution of the last (Indian) Parliament on this issue, in which we have given our opinion that we are against sending troops to Iraq. Now the situation has changed. There is a resolution unanimously passed by the U.N., there are Arab members in it. We will look at it very carefully,” the minister said

He, however, added: “I must emphasize that this matter will have to be placed before the (Indian) government at the highest levels, and it would be premature for me to say yea or nay.”

In reply to a specific question about India sending troops to Iraq, Singh said: “Nobody has asked us (to send troops). We will look at the (U.N.) resolution very minutely. We are not in the Security Council and we will take the decision when the time comes.”

Earlier, Secretary Powell who was present with Singh, declined to say whether he had made a specific troop request to India. He said the U.S. had made appeals to a number of countries asking for the deployment of their forces in Iraq.

Powell and Singh, who met for the first time after the assumption of office by the new United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in India last month, hoped that the U.S.-India relations, which had improved considerably over the last few years, would gain further strength.

Powell also said that he and the Indian minister discussed Kashmir. He said the U.S. believed that the level of infiltration into Kashmir by Pakistan-based militants was down. However, U.S. officials continue to express concern to Pakistan about the infrastructure of the militant groups that remains on Pakistan’s side of the border.

In reply to a question, Powell dismissed a suggestion that the Bush administration had hoped that the BJP-led government of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would return to power. Powell remarked that U.S. officials know better than to try to predict the outcome of Indian elections

“The people of India have spoken. India is a great democracy and we will work with the government that the people of India have selected. And we have demonstrated out here I think today that it will be a warm, productive relationship that is intended to move us forward and build an even stronger relationship with India. We don’t place bets on elections. I’ve learned that long ago

“And we will now support the government and work with the government, that the Indian people have decided upon,” the secretary of state said.