পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (চতুর্দশ খণ্ড).pdf/২৩৮

বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ চতুর্দশ খন্ড শিরোনাম সূত্র তারিখ ৮৪। ঘনিষ্ঠ বন্ধ নিউজ উইক ২৩ আগষ্ট, ১৯৭১ NEWSWEEK, AUGUST23, 1971) THE VERY BEST OF FRIENDS When Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko flew into New Delhi last week, the local diplomatic corps hardly took notice. Some of the foreign envoys had been assured by Indian officials that nothing very exciting would come from the Gromyko visit, and many of them repaired to the northern hill stations to escape the sweltering summer heat and rain. But only a day after his arrival Russia's No. I diplomatic troubleshooter made it plain that he had come to India's capital on urgent and momentous business. Seated at flag-bedecked table in New Delhi's Foreign Ministry; Gromyko triumphantly set his signature to a precedent-shattering, twenty-year treaty of peace, friendship and co-operation between the Soviet Union and India. On the face of" it, the treaty was so vaguely worded that, as one Western analyst observed, "ii could mean practically anything." But the impact of document lay less in what it said than in what it implied. By entering into a formal agreement with another power. India took a long step away from its cherished policy of nomalignmcmt. By coming down solidly in support of India, Russia served up a warning to Pakistan against any rash moves (and thus, for the moment, seemed to reduce the threat of war between the subcontinent's bitter enemies). In doing this, however. Moscow openly declared its opposition to China, Pakistan's staunchest backer of late, and abruptly changed the balance of power in South Asia. In the same vein, the treaty reflected America's plummeting prestige and influence in the region at a time when many Indians have come to view Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger as arch villains. And in the sense, that Indo- Soviet pact could be regarded as the most important diplomatic fallout so far from Washington's current courtship of Peking. Despite appearances, the treaty was not an instant creation, for Moscow and, New Delhi had batted the idea around for at least two years. Until recently, however, neither government felt a pressing need to pursue the matter further. Then the outbreak of civil war in Pakistan this spring drastically altered the picture. As millions of Bengali refugees poured out of East Pakistan into India, and as border incidents mounted, relation between the two countries reached a flashpoint. Reports circulated that the government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, under mounting pressure from right-wingers in Parliament, was on the verge of extending diplomatic relations to the Bangladesh rebels in East Pakistan, a move that Pakistani President Mohammed Yahya Khan warned would be tantamount to a declaration of war. In that emergency, interest in a Moscow-New Delhi agreement suddenly revived. And after secret negotiations in Moscow that lasted less than two weeks, Andrei Gromyko was on his way to New Delhi to do the honors. Much of the twelve-article treaty devoted itself to innocuous promises of technological cooperation and cultural exchanges. But the key passage. Article IX.