 "Govt. has not made its foreign policy clear: Salman Khurshid")
Former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid on Sunday said that the NDA Government at the Centre has not made its foreign policy clear, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of visiting various nations and saying only what they want to hear.
"To comment on the foreign policy, you must know what the foreign policy is. I don't think it has been made clear what our foreign policy is. Everywhere the Prime Minister goes, he says what the people there want to hear: go to Japan and say something critical about China; go to China and not even talk about the People's Liberation Army crossing the Line of Actual Control (LAC); go to the US and offer yourself as an ally rather than just a strategic partner...," Khurshid said.
"How can we be an ally for the US when they are involved in three very serious theatres of war in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan - are we going to send our troops there? The answer is no, we cannot and India has never accepted this," he added.
Khurshid also raised doubts about the effectiveness of the 'Make in India' initiative.
"The 'Make in India' initiative is fine but if there is a trade gap with China ... what are we going to do about that? What are we going to do with manufactured goods? Are they going to be re-exported... our exports are falling but have we worked out why they are falling constantly? These are all fundamental questions and I don't see any signs of clarity. I could say more only if I knew more about the foreign policy," he said.
Earlier in the day, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said that the Prime Minister Modi-led government's foreign policy could be best judged by three factors - visits, dialogues and outcomes; adding that India has made contact with 101 countries in the one year it has been in office.