New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday claimed India has suffered three “huge diplomatic setbacks” from the US which is constantly hyphenating India and Pakistan and that the Modi government’s foreign policy has “failed” as it is driven by domestic political considerations.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said the US’ recent statements were both a “challenge and a warning” and required serious thinking “when the PM is only interested in playing divisive politics”.
He also said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should leave aside his “stubbornness” to call an all-party meeting and a special session of Parliament.
“Yesterday, Indian foreign policy and diplomacy received three huge, undeniable setbacks. The General of the US Central Command gives a statement that Pakistan is a phenomenal partner in counter-terrorism. What is phenomenal? On May 2, 2011, Osama Bin Laden was found in Abbottabad and you are calling that country a phenomenal partner,” Ramesh told PTI.
So, the first “setback” is the US general giving a “clean chit” to Pakistan, he said.
US Army General Michael Kurilla, Commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), has said Pakistan is “in an active counterterrorism fight right now and has been a phenomenal partner in the counterterrorism world”.
The United States has to have a relationship with Pakistan and with India, and noted that it cannot be a “binary switch” where Washington cannot have ties with Islamabad if it has relations with New Delhi, Kurilla said during a testimony before the US House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.
Ramesh further said, “Failed Marshal Asim Munir, who gave such inflammatory, incendiary and provocative statements, talked about the two-nation theory, Hindus and Muslims, and there is a direct relation between his statement and what happened in Pahalgam on April 22. Same Asim Munir gets a special invitation to go to America on US Army Day on June 14, which is incomprehensible.”
The third setback is that the US state department spokesperson again repeated that it was US President Donald Trump who was responsible for bringing about a de-escalation between India and Pakistan, the Congress leader said.
He said again the US has hyphenated India and Pakistan while Prime Minister Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar are completely silent on it.
“He (Modi) meets members of delegations but does not have time for an all-party meeting to meet leaders of political parties. Our democracy is based on political parties not on individuals,” Ramesh said.
Leaders of opposition parties have written to the PM to call a special session of Parliament but the government has rejected the request and instead announced the monsoon session from July 21.
“Is he (PM Modi) going to allow a special debate on our challenges with China and Pakistan, and now our challenge with the US. We thought that we were having an extended honeymoon with the US but it has delivered three huge setbacks to Indian diplomacy yesterday,” Ramesh said.