New Delhi: Maintaining that the US had "no roadmap" for resolution of vexed Kashmir issue, former US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott today (Sep 21, 2004) favoured conversion of the Line of Control (LoC) into permanent border and said Washington could play the role of a "facilitator".

A key official of the Clinton Administration, who was engaged in parallel talks with Indian and Pakistani leaders in the aftermath of 1998 nuclear tests, he said the US had acquired a "unique influence" on Islamabad which it will be using for the benefit of this country.

"The US has no secret roadmap for resolution of the Kashmir issue. India and Pakistan should have the roadmap," Talbott, who was in the State Department for eight years, told sources in an interview when asked about the perception that Washington had chalked out a plan for settlement of the vexed issue.

"It will not be appropriate for the US to have a roadmap on Kashmir," he said.

Favouring conversion of LoC into permanent border, he said "due accommodation (should be) made for the rights and interests of people who live in Jammu and Kashmir and make arrangements for peaceful and commercially-beneficial interaction between the people of Kashmir (on both sides of the divide.

To a question, Talbott said the US could play the role of a "facilitator" and not a "mediator" in resolving the Kashmir issue, which he said can be settled through use of "common sense and political will" by India and Pakistan.

He said the US has "influence on Islamabad that is unique in some ways" and "we are going to use that to advance goals and interests which are in India's interests as well."

On the Pokhran nuclear tests, Talbott, who was Washington's interlocutor with India on the issue, admitted that the development acted as a "catalyst" in enhancing the Indo-US relations, which were not "broad-gauged" prior to that.

"We wish it had happened without it (nuclear tests)," he said when asked whether in the aftermath of the tests the US understood India better.

The relations between India and US, Talbott said, was not good for over 50 years largely because of Cold War politics when New Delhi was seen as pro-Soviet.

Then the turnaround came in the aftermath of the 1998 nuclear tests because of the efforts by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and President Bill Clinton.