Jaswant points to foreign policy lapses

Former Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh has charged the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government with serious foreign policy lapses and warns that inattentivness by the government could lead to a crisis, especially in the subcontinent.

In the context of the recent visit of Afghanistan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and India's stakes in Afghanistan, Singh said India had made no comment on the downing of a helicopter carrying US soldiers including highly-trained SEALs of the US Navy.

"There has been an exchange of bitter words between Afgha-nistan and Pakistan, requiring the intervention of the US President to get the Presidents of Afgh-anistan and Pakistan to begin talking to each other. President George W Bush has spoken to the two leaders at least twice on the telephone, maybe more.

"Why India should not take note of this astonishes me, especially given the history of the relations between the two countries and how much India has done for Afghanistan. Please also note that India continues to be denied direct land and air access to a neighbouring country," Singh said.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Singh said US troops were also present in Iraq and "if the US doesn't 'succeed' in its' 'mission', the consequences for us in India are going to be direct, adverse and unpleasant". On the other hand, "the path on which the US is set on Iraq and the methods adopted are, to my mind, so perilous that even inadvertently we might well arrive at the same position""extremely unpleasant".

Singh said India "must ask and the US must offer at least an in-depth dialogue and exchange of views. If we are the US strategic partner, and the relationship is to be promoted, is this too much to ask?"

Singh said it was astonishing that the UPA and even the Left parties, who had a stated position on the matter, should not have commented on the presence of Nato troops fighting in Afghanistan. "To me individually, it is deeply disturbing that Nato troops are fighting in Afgha-nistan today. I want to know, if Pakistan is happy to see Nato there, are we happy as well?"

Singh felt "all initiative in regard to peace with Pakistan had been usurped from India" since the new government assumed office. "We are not at all happy that the government has relegated to the background, the centrality of cross-border terrorism," he said.

Singh said on the one hand the government was saying there could be no change in borders. "Fine. But how do you reconcile this with having such a soft western border that travel can be undertaken between the two countries without valid travel documents?" Singh asked.

He also said his party had serious concerns about the manner in which the UPA and its Left allies had given up India's national interest by agreeing to refer the Baglihar project to the World Bank "arbitration".

"We know, as does Pakistan, that these are not binding. But what is crippling is the stoppage of construction on the Baglihar project that is of vital importance to J&K. Second, we are introducing a third party in the context of J&K. And we are playing with the future of development of water resources""we are in any case, far behind our usage of agreed figures of the Indus Water Treaty".

Singh sounded the alarm on the internal developments in Bangladesh and India's apparent insensitivity to Indian citizens living in the North-east in the context of "greatly heightened activities of Islamic fundamentalism by deliberate and totally unchecked illegal immigration, which even the chief minister of West Bengal has now had to criticise".