BY LALIT K JHA

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The US should offer “strong and active” support to India for a permanent UN Security Council seat in return for New Delhi agreeing to “genuine and enforceable concessions” on the Kashmir issue, a veteran American diplomat has suggested.

Cautioning the Obama administration against being “too enthusiastic” in its effort to resolve the Kashmir issue, foreign policy veteran Howard Schaffer said American efforts in the region should involve “quiet diplomacy”.

Schaffer is a former US Ambassador to Bangladesh and has also served in India and Pakistan.

In “The Limits of Influence: America’s Role in Kashmir,” Schaffer said: “An offer of strong and active US support for a permanent Indian UN Security Council seat could be one approach worth weighing”.

Indian acceptance of a substantial degree of autonomy for Kashmir would need iron-clad constitutional guarantees to be accepted by the Pakistanis, Schaffer wrote in the concluding pages of his 272-page book. (PTI)