Expose rocks Lower House

Veteran BJP MP and former External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh said the WikiLeaks’ expose had revealed how the UPA government allowed the US to influence India’s foreign policy.

“Who is the External Affairs Minister of India?” asked Singh, alleging that the leaked  cables gave an impression that the government’s foreign policy was being framed in Washington DC at the behest of the US.

Initiating a debate in the Lok Sabha on the demand for grants for the Ministry of External Affairs, Singh slammed the Centre’s foreign policy, particularly its way of “controlling” India’s relations with countries in its immediate and extended neighbourhood. Singh said New Delhi could surely find an “answer to Pakistan” on its own. “But we will never find an answer if we bank on the US,” he said.

He said the expose revealed that the Centre had ignored “professional advice” of the diplomats of the Ministry of External Affairs and decided to vote against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Association Board of Governors on September 24, 2005, under pressure from the US.

He said it was after a meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the then  US president George W Bush that instructions were sent to Indian diplomats in Vienna to go with the US/European Union resolution on Iran’s controversial nuclear programme in the IAEA.

Congress MP and former Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor countered Singh and played down the WikiLeaks’ exposes.  “Strategic autonomy is fundamental to our foreign policy,” said Tharoor.

He said New Delhi had to maintain good relations with all countries, particularly those on which India was dependent on for its energy requirement, which are the sources of investments and with which the country had good trade relations. Tharoor said since the US was still the sole super-power New Delhi had to maintain good relations with it.
He said while India had old civilisational and cultural links with Iran, that should not stop it from taking a principled position on Tehran’s reluctance to fulfill its own obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.