Gujral Protests Move To Pin Blame For Un Debacle

I will resign within 24 hours if people are convinced that it is my fault. Bureaucrats should not be blamed for this, if I am responsible for successes in Indias foreign policy then I am also responsible for its failures, Gujral told newsmen on board the prime ministers plane bound for Harare on Saturday to attend the G-15 summit.

Responding to queries about the ministrys failure inaccurately assessing Indias chances in winning the non-permanent seat against Japan in the Security Council election, the minister said he knew from the beginning that India stood little chance against Japan.

After refusing to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), I am not so naive as to imagine that some powers would not come in our way, he said, adding, Yet we persisted and this shows the independence of Indias foreign policy. Whenever in the past we have taken an independent line the main powers have opposed us.

 

Seeming hurt at the volley of criticism from opposition leaders and the media on the debacle, Gujral said the decision to contest had been taken in 1994-95 and that soon after he assumed office his colleagues in the opposition had said that India must remain in the fray.

I was told by my predecessor in writing (Pranab Mukherjee) not to withdraw from the contest. The same advice was give to me by other friends in the opposition. I took this advice because those very friends would have otherwise said that youve chickened out, he said.

But Gujral pointed out that of the 40 votes that came to India, three permanent members of the Security Council, China, Russia and France, had voted in favour.

He said this was a great leap from the 3 votes that India had got when the UN voted on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT )resolution in last September.

On the just-concluded Friends of Afghanistan conference in Teheran, Gujral felt the invitation to India as a veritable foreign policy coup. This regional initiative should be welcomed because it is for the first time that such a development is taking place in the post Cold War era, he said.

He admitted that Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati told him that some powers had opposed Indias participation in the conference but that India as a major power in the region could not be kept out.

In fact, Pakistan had even sent a ministerial-level delegation to Iran saying that India should not be invited.

Gujral said that secretary-general Boutros Boutros Ghali had now convened another conference on Afghanistan on November 18, to which India had been invited.