Rhetorical Polemics With Pak To Be Avoided

External affairs minister I K Gujral has said it is against Indian ethos to resort to rhetorical polemics against Pakistan or any other country and that he saw no reason to change the present policy towards Islamabad.

Gujaral said if Pakistan did not respond to Indian initiatives it would be left behind in the development race in the region.

Whether I am soft on Pakistan or hard on Pakistan is not the issue. I dont think rhetorical polemics help any country. It is basically against Indian ethos to have hard rhetoric or something which is not very civilised, Gujral said in an interview.

 

He said Indian foreign policy vis-a-vis Pakistan should not be judged on mere rhetoric but the standing of each country in the international eye.

He said that at the recent meeting of the South Asian Asoociation for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) foreign ministers in New Delhi, Pakistan was clearly told by the others to either go along with the rest or be left out of the fast crystallising regional and sub-regional cooperation.

Gujral said even Chinese President Jiang Zemin had advised Pakistan to eschew the confrontationist path with India and instead take to the path of cooperation. He said he had pointed out to Pakistans foreign minister Yakub Khan last month that Islamabad was yet to respond to the specific offer of talks made by Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda and it was up to the new government after the elections to respond to that.

So far as we are concerned our doors are always open, Gujral said, adding but I am patient and we are willing to wait.

Gujral said public opinion in India appreciated the present policy towards Pakistan. He said the United Front governments neighbourhood doctrine had started showing results and all countries, except Pakistan, have been very appreciative of this policy and said they would like to build on this newly developing relationship with India.

In settling the water issue with Bangladesh we have passed the litmus test of our asymmetrical foreign policy doctrine with neighbours, Gujral said, wherein India, as the largest country in the region, should be seen as doing more for its smaller neighbours than its neigbours would do for it. He said this policy had earned India enormous goodwill and it was apparent in the changed stances of some of the countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka towards India.

He scoffed at criticism that India had become isolated following its refusal to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and said increasing number of visits to India by foreign government leaders belied such observations.

There has hardly been a week in the last few months when some foreign dignitary or another was not visiting us, Gujral said, adding I therefore dont know what isolation means.

He said as early as August, much before India lost the contest for a non-permanent seat in the U N Security Council to Japan, he had warned Parliament that once you stand up and have the courage to pursue an independent foreign policy, it is not rewarded by those who are supreme in the international power structure today.

He said pressure will continue on India in the next three years, before the entry-into-force clause comes into effect, to persuade it to sign the CTBT. However, he said India, while reaffirming its intention of not to sign what it regards as a flawed treaty, was working out on a proposal on how to further global nuclear disarmament. He said such a proposal was likely to be placed before the non-aligned foreign ministers meeting in New Delhi in April in which 118 countries were expected to participate.

Gujral said he would visit Washington in March to meet new secretary of state Madeline Albright and said he saw no major causes of friction in the relationship with the US which was improving steadily with cooperation building on trade, investment and even defence.

He would visit Moscow in January-end and then go on to Beijing. He said a new chapter had opened in ties with China whose President had visited India last month and had expressed appreciation of the countrys foreign policy. He would also be the first Indian foreign minister in a long time to visit Saudi Arabia next month.

Indian foreign policys major goals for 1997 would be building regional and sub-regional cooperation in the South Asian region, creating a common market of Indian Ocean rim countries and consolidating ties with Central Asia and Iran.

He said consolidation of ties with Iran was a plus factor, considering the fact that in his first stint as Foreign Minister in 1989-90 he had to cancel a trip to Tehran because of that countrys utterances about the plight of Muslims in India.

From that to a position where the same Iranian foreign minister (Ali Akbar Velayati) came to India to invite us to attend to the Tehran conference on Afghanistan, and that in spite of Pakistans protestations, is I think a big achievement, Gujral said.

He said it gave him a great deal of satisfaction that in six months we have been able to give a decisive turn to foreign policy.

There is no adhocism. Our goals are clear. Our national interests are defined and so is our doctrine, Gujral said.