India would certainly use the occasion to malign Pakistan for its perceivedsupport for the Taliban with the purpose of driving a wedge between Washington and Islamabad. Nor would it spare any effort to damage the cause of the mujahideen fighting for their freedom in Kashmir by trying to establish a linkage between them and the Taliban. Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh is already claiming the Kargil conflict was an overspill of the Afghanistan crisis.

Considering the possibility that Indian officials, who have already reached Washington, might find a ready and responsive ear in the State Department about their canard that the Pakistan Army and the ISI are the ``principal backers'' of the Taliban, the US-Indian bilateral parleys would constitute a setback to Pakistan. A thorough review of Pakistan's Afghan policy already long overdue is now urgently called for to tackle the possibility of any dangerous fall-out of the US-Indian move.