Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s speech at the United Nations drew applause from Congress spokesperson Shashi Tharoor on Sunday.
‘Strong speech by @PMOIndia at #UNGA2014. Soaring internationalism, support for democracy & environment, anti-terrorism. Good reply to Pak,’ Tharoor said on Twitter.
At the same time, the former Minister for State for External Affairs said it was unfortunate for an Indian Prime Minister to ‘refer to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir as Pakistan’.
‘Risk of extempore speech: in foreign affairs it helps to be tightly scripted. Referring to PoK as ‘Pakistan’ unfortunate for an Indian PM,’ Tharoor said in another tweet.
Hitting out at Pakistan for raking up the Kashmir issue at the UN, the prime minister had on Saturday offered to engage in a serious bilateral dialogue ‘without the shadow of terrrorism’ while asking it to create an ‘appropriate environment’ for that.
In a clear rebuff to his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif, who had insisted on a plebiscite in J&K, Modi had said, ‘Raising issues in this forum is not the way to make progress towards resolving issues between our two countries.’