'Keeping ties with Pakistan is essential — but never at the cost of India's interests': Rubio reassures New Delhi

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has moved to dispel the doubts and concerns that have grown in New Delhi over Washington's recent closeness with China and Pakistan. He made clear that America's bilateral diplomatic relations with any country will not be built by sacrificing India's national interests.

Rubio gave the assurance in an interview with the Indian newspaper The Indian Express. He is currently in India on a two-day state visit. In the interview he also highlighted Washington's commitment to a trade deal and the two countries' joint diplomatic work.

In Rubio's view, it would be wrong to equate the geopolitics of the Nixon-Kissinger era of the 1970s with the diplomacy of the current Donald Trump administration, because global realities have been transformed over the intervening decades. Under President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger, US policy on South Asia had leaned heavily in favour of Pakistan's then military rulers — the historical backdrop to New Delhi's anxieties.

Laying out the present global context, Rubio said: 'I will not use the 1970s as an example, because the world today bears no resemblance to that time. Back then we had the Cold War and various other equations, which no longer exist.'

On the Trump administration's growing engagement with Pakistan's army chief, General Asim Munir, the US secretary of state said that whatever relations America has with any other country in the world, they will in no way come at the price of, or damage, its relationship with India. Washington does not hold such a view towards its relationship with India, he added.

'I hope my visit, our commitment to making a trade deal, our joint diplomatic activities and everything we do together are the big proof of that,' he said.

Rubio believes that maintaining Washington's diplomatic engagement with Islamabad can instead help create a favourable environment that positively works to pre-empt or discourage any potential crisis that might worry New Delhi.

Explaining the point, he said: 'Pakistan is a country with which we have a relationship, and keeping that relationship is essential. In some cases, if we can use our influence in a positive way to discourage a step that could lead towards a potential conflict, that can bring positive results.'

Rubio also spoke about the Ukraine war in the interview. Acknowledging the complications in the process of ending Russia's four-year war on Ukrainian soil, he said the issues are quite complex, and if this had been an easy war to resolve, it would have been settled long ago.

In South Asian geopolitics, Washington wants to maintain relations with both India and Pakistan — two nuclear-armed neighbours. Observers see Rubio's visit and interview as an expression of that balancing policy: engagement with Islamabad will continue, but New Delhi will be reassured again and again that India will not have to pay the price of that closeness.