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| Malik's statements not a setback, says FM Khurshid | | IS IFO in right hands? | | Rustam
JAMMU, Jan 7: The December 2012 New Delhi visit of Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik was construed by many in India, including sections of nationalist media, as a deliberate affront to the self-respect of India. The reason: Malik had made a number of highly controversial statements and made negative comments on certain internal matters of India. He had compared the Ayodhya incident with the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack and 9/11 US terror attacks; he had held the Indian spy agencies responsible for their failure to prevent 26/11 terror attacks which had left 166 innocent civilians dead and a number of others injured, some of them fatally; he had said that Lashkar-e-Toiba militant Abu Jindal, who was present in the LeT control room (Karachi) during the 26/11 attack and was deported by Saudi Arabia to India recently, had "worked as one of the sources of a very elite agency of India"; and he had criticised Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for raking up the Sir Creek issue during the election campaign for vote-bank politics.
Malik, who threw to the wind all the diplomatic norms and nuances, had made some of these highly outrageous statements in the presence of Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, who failed India by not snubbing and countering Malik then and there itself - a lapse that provoked concerned Indian political leaders, particularly those belonging to the BJP, as well as bulk of Indian media, to question Shinde. The BJP had even demanded resignation of Shinde and asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to explain where things went wrong. Even some of the Congress leaders had denounced Malik for his interference in the internal affairs of India. Not only this, Union Home Secretary RK Singh had tore into Malik and described some of his remarks "ridiculous". "Such a statement is ridiculous. Jindal was working with the LeT in Pakistan's soil when the Mumbai attack was carried out. The main issue was that the Mumbai attack was conceived and planned and directed from the soil of Pakistan. Pakistan did not take any action against these elements when the plan was being conceived and put into effect. Even after the Mumbai attack when full facts were known to the world, Pakistan was hesitating to take action against key conspirators and key operatives," he had said.
Believe it or not, but it is fact that Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid does not think that the controversial statements made by Malik while on official tour to India constitute a "setback" in the dialogue process. "What is said or what gesture is made is not critical," he said. "I don't see it as a setback at all. But I do believe and (what) we all believe in this country is that dialogue will move smoothly, faster and in a right direction provided the wish-list lying with Pakistan given by India as far as Mumbai tragedy is concerned is responded to. That is a critical thing, not what is said, not what gesture is made. Ultimately it is the delivery of the fundamental aspects that are required to be fulfilled... Unless that is done, we will not have substantive movement. And it has not been done to satisfaction," he also said in a wide-ranging interview yesterday in New Delhi. He was actually taking stock of the India-Pakistan relations in the year 2012.
What Khurshid said in his interview is self-explanatory and it should leave none in any doubt that the Indian Foreign Ministry is not in safe hands. Even a country of the size of Maldives would have snapped all ties with a country had any of its Ministers behaved like Malik behaved in India while on an official tour. Why to blame Khurshid? The real problem lies somewhere else and the concerned Indians know who has/have been responsible for the collapse of the Indian foreign policy, as also for condoning the heinous crimes committed by Pakistan and its agents in Kashmir. |
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