In the highest level yet of Indian reaction to the American killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Indian Foreign Minister S. M. Krishna has said that it will not allow the incident to come in the way of talks with Pakistan. Quite apart from the fact that he addressed a non-issue, of how exactly the American operation would affect Pakistans relations with India, while talking to the press on Sunday Mr Krishnan also said that Pakistan was a neighbour, and India wanted good relations with it. He said that neighbours could not be changed. However, he did not take the next logical step, that of identifying why the relationship was not ideal, to the extent that the two had been to war thrice since independence. The answer is an issue that India works very hard to have kept Kashmir off the negotiating table and how its people are to exercise their right of self-determination. It is a happy circumstance that the method of that exercise has already been accepted by India, in the form of the UN Security Council resolution that provides for it by a UN-supervised plebiscite. There is thus no need to square the circle and re-invent the wheel by trying a new solution, but India must show the requisite sincerity in working out with Pakistan and the Kashmiri people the modalities of that plebiscite. However, India agrees to hold talks because it is trying to curry favour with the USA, but is doing its best to use those talks to avoid the subject. Now India, through its Home Ministry, is once again using the USAs Abbottabad operation to play the broken record of intrusions into Occupied Kashmir sponsored by Pakistan, by claiming that it will use the operation to launch those it has trained. Pakistan should notice that that part of Krishnas statement indicating good wishes for Pakistan, has only come after an American spokesman rebuffed the Indian COASs statement, in which he said that India could launch a similar raid into Pakistan to capture the Mumbai accused. While addressing Pakistan, India is keeping an eye open for the USA, whose new ally in the region it is, content with becoming its counterweight against China. However, while doing the US bidding against China, India also expects that it will receive full backing from the USA for its regional adventures. The truth is that India will make a poor regional ally, because it is such a bad neighbour. However, that should not be so much Pakistans concern, as how it will pull out of its own entanglement with the USA, in which it has no regard for its sovereignty, and which is owed primarily to its ruling class fascination with it.