Cablegate content: South Asia

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This article has been split into separate sections to handle the large amount of information

• United States diplomatic cables WikiLeak
• Cablegate content: Americas, organisations and leaders
• Cablegate content: Europe
• Cablegate content: Middle East and North Africa
• Cablegate content: South Asia
• Cablegate content: East Asia and Oceania
• Cablegate data, and response

South Asia

India

• A U.S. State Department cable called India a "self-appointed frontrunner for permanent UNSC seat". However, despite the criticisms, the U.S. remains supportive of India's bid for a seat in the United Nations, along with that of Japan, Brazil, and Germany.
• The U.S. State Department solicited "biographical and biometric information on key NAM/G-77/OIC Permanent Representatives, particularly India, China".
• The U.S. conducted its own secret analysis of India's military contingency plans, which are codenamed Cold Start. India has said that if sufficiently provoked, it would mount a rapid invasion of Pakistan. The U.S. said in a cable that it doubted the Indian Army was capable of doing so: "It is the collective judgment of the mission that India would likely encounter very mixed results. Indian forces could have significant problems consolidating initial gains due to logistical difficulties and slow reinforcement". However, U.S. Ambassador to India Tim Roemer warned that for India to launch the Cold Start doctrine, would be to "roll the nuclear dice". It could trigger the world's first use of nuclear weapons since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Indian leaders no doubt realize that, although Cold Start is designed to punish Pakistan in a limited manner without triggering a nuclear response, the Indians cannot be sure whether Pakistani leaders will in fact refrain from such a response". To counter the Indian doctrine, U.S. diplomats in Islamabad were told Pakistan was working on producing smaller, tactical nuclear weapons such as nuclear artillery that could be used on the battlefield against Indian troops.
• Seven months after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba had plans to assassinate Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi

Pakistan

• Grave fears in the U.S. and the U.K. over the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme. Since 2007, the U.S. has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In the words of U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson, Pakistan had refused visits from American experts,Template:clarify while an official told her "If the local media got word of the fuel removal, they would certainly portray it as the United States taking Pakistan's nuclear weapons".
• In July 2009, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces and de facto defence chief, said Zardari was "dirty but not dangerous" and that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was "dangerous but not dirty -- this is Pakistan".
• Saudi King Abdullah called President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan the greatest obstacle to the country's progress. "When the head is rotten", he said, "it affects the whole body".
• The Saudi Government is concerned about Pakistan's political fragility, and has worked hard through its embassy in Islamabad, to bring the Pakistani factions together. Saudi relations with Pakistan have been strained because the Saudis do not trust Zardari and see him and other leading Pakistani politicians as corrupt.
• A new rail link between Pakistan and Iran would be delayed for the time being, owing to poor conditions, low freight-carrying capacity and unrest from Baloch insurgents in the Balochistan region of both countries. Likewise, a natural gas pipeline agreement was also not expected to be fruitful because "the Pakistanis don't have the money to pay for either the pipeline, or the gas".
• According to the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel was concerned for the well-being of former president Pervez Musharraf and wanted him to stay in power in 2007. The director of Mossad, Meir Dagan, remarked: "...he is facing a serious problem with the militants. Pakistan’s nuclear capability could end up in the hands of an Islamic regime".
• Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak described Pakistan as his "private nightmare". He said that a potential Islamic extremist threat in Pakistan could wake up the world "with everything changed". Barak also dismissed the idea of using force on Iran as backfiring upon moderate Muslims in Pakistan, saying that while the two countries were interconnected, such a causal chain could not be established.
• In February 2010, a Turkish expert on South Asian Affairs, Engin Soysal, told U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs William J. Burns that the Pakistani military was unhappy with Zardari, though it was not leaning to intervene. Soysal added that the "senior officers' patience may not be infinite", and that "Zardari needs to increase the democratic legitimacy of parliament".
• Jasmine Zerinini, a French specialist on Afghanistan-Pakistan affairs, said that Pakistan Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had "learnt his lesson from Musharraf" by staying behind the scenes and not interceding in the country's political situation. At the same time, Zerinini claimed that Kayani was manipulating the government into preventing policy change on Pakistan's war-ridden tribal belt and he had a role in provoking controversy surrounding the contentious Kerry-Lugar bill. She also added that the West had not adequately targeted Pakistan's military to take on the Afghan Taliban hiding in Pakistan, saying militant leaders had been allowed to create networks funded by Gulf donors which were difficult to be defeated.
• The cables reveal that Vice President Biden told British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in March 2009 that Mr. Zardari had told him he feared an army coup and that the "ISI director and Kayani will take me out".
• In a conversation with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said he found it "astonishing" that President Zardari was still in power in 2010 and that the Pakistani military's operations against militants along the Afghan border had been striking. Kouchner concurred and added that political and military changes in Pakistan were "nothing short of a miracle". Gates and Kouchner also discussed the improving image of the Pakistan Army after its "aggressive campaign against the insurgency".
• Fearing attempts on his life, Zardari told ambassador Anne W. Patterson that in the event he were to be assassinated, he had instructed his son Bilawal Zardari Bhutto (who along with Zardari is the co-Chairman of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party) to appoint his sister Faryal Talpur as President and he had informed the United Arab Emirates of his intent to allow the family to continue living there.
• In November 2007, Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman, a politician and leader of the Islamist party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, invited Patterson to a dinner in which he sought her support in becoming Prime Minister and expressed a desire to visit America. According to Rehman's personal aide, "All important parties in Pakistan had to get the approval" of the US. Referring to Rehman, Patterson mentioned "He has made it clear that....his still significant number of votes are up for sale". The cables also highlighted the contradictions of other prominent figures. Amin Fahim, a Bhutto follower hoping to run for Prime Minister, led an Islamic religious party "while enjoying an occasional bloody mary".
• According to a document from October 2009, head of Pakistan's intelligence agency Ahmad Shuja Pasha provided intelligence on potential terrorist attacks in India to Israel. According to the cable, "He had been in direct touch with the Israelis on possible threats against Israeli targets in India".
• Kayani is described in American interactions as "direct, frank, and thoughtful" and has "fond memories" of time spent on a military training course in the US. He also "smokes heavily and can be difficult to understand as he tends to mumble". ISI chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha was said to be "usually more emotional" than Kayani.
• In February 2009, Zardari's spokesperson Farahnaz Ispahani said the president was "very unhappy" with the way Prime Minister Gillani had "gone off the reservation" (in relation to Gillani's talks with Shahbaz Sharif that the government would not try to remove the Sharifs from power in Punjab). In 2008, Zardari also commented on Amin Fahim, saying he "had spent most of the [ election ] campaign in Dubai (with his latest 22 year-old wife) and was simply too lazy to be prime minister".
• In 2008, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani personally consented American drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas along the Afghan border to combat the Taliban. When Interior Minister Rehman Malik recommended the US to hold back "alleged Predator attacks until after the Bajaur operation", Gillani dismissed the remarks and was heard saying: "I don’t care if they do it as long as they get the right people. We’ll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it".
• There are revelations that small teams of elite US special forces may have been dispatched in the tribal belt to help coordinate the Pakistani military's operations. One record indicates that up to 16 US soldiers had been deployed to help Pakistani troops in 2009. Their role is primarily training-oriented and to provide "intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance" support – ISR in military jargon – "general operational advice" and set up live satellite feed from presumably CIA-operated American drones flying overhead.
• DG ISI, General Shuja Pasha revealed to the MPs in the Pakistani Parliament that India, Russia, UAE support Baloch insurgency in Pakistan. General Pasha also claimed that India and the UAE (reportedly due to opposition to construction of the Gwadar port) were funding and arming the Baloch, and that the Russian government was directly involved in funding/training/supporting the insurgency.

Sri Lanka

• Foreign Secretary of United Kingdom David Miliband directed much of his attention on the final stages of Sri Lankan Civil War to win votes of Tamils in UK stated Tim Waite, a Foreign Office team leader on Sri Lanka, quoted in one US embassy cable. "He [Tim Waite] said that with UK elections on the horizon and many Tamils living in Labour constituencies with slim majorities, the government is paying particular attention to Sri Lanka, with Miliband recently remarking to Waite that he was spending 60 per cent of his time at the moment on Sri Lanka" the cable revealed.
• Verifying the accountability for alleged crimes in the final stages of the Sri Lankan civil war "has been the most difficult issue in our bilateral agenda", stated Patricia A. Butenis, US ambassador to Sri Lanka. "There are no examples we know of a regime undertaking wholesale investigations of its own troops or senior officials for war crimes while that regime or government remained in power". Cable also revealed that "Most Tamils in Sri Lanka appear to think it is both unrealistic and counter-productive to push the issue too aggressively" quoting several Tamil politicians including R. Sampanthan, leader of the Tamil National Alliance.