Natwar defends foreign policy stance

Foreign Minister K Natwar Singh today said the foreign policy of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was "not made through the media but in the external affairs ministry". He said the UPA valued consistency and continuity in foreign policy.

Replying to a debate on foreign policy in the Rajya Sabha, Singh heaped all the blame for his reported views""in an interview given to a Korean newspaper during a recent visit to Seoul that credited him with rubbishing the nuclear tests and saying if the Congress had been in power, this would never have been done"" on the media and said while changes had been made in the foreign policy stance adopted by the NDA but continuity would be respected.

Singh also launched a broadside against non-professionals occupying the foreign office and said the proof of the pudding was in its eating.

While India had seen Agra and Kargil because non-professionals were handling the foreign office, it was professionals like Yashwant Sinha (and his son-in-law "who works with me in the Ministry of External Affairs and is an excellent officer," Singh said) who had delivered the Lahore Agreement of January 2004 between India and Pakistan, he stated.

Possibly for the first time, Singh described the differences in approach between the UPA and the NDA on foreign policy.

He said where the NDA had followed a policy of flip-flop towards Pakistan, the UPA believed in slow and methodical work. He said the NDA had neglected India's neighbourhood, something the UPA was trying to remedy.

Singh said the King of Nepal, who was coming to India tomorrow, would be told that India would be supportive of any efforts by him to bring all political parties at a table to discuss how the challenge of the Maoist insurgency could be handled.

He would also be assured of all possible support to the Royal Nepal Army, increased surveillance on the border and talks would take place on how intelligence could be better shared.

Singh made it clear that India favoured a multi-party democracy and a constitutional monarchy. On Sri Lanka and Bhutan, Singh said India supported improved economic ties.

On relations with the US, he refuted charges made during the course of the debate that India had surrendered on the issue of end use verification of items of US origins given to the country under license.

On the contrary, he charged India with letting the US offer a $3 billion package of armaments to Pakistan during President Pervej Musharraf's Camp David meeting in 2003 and also claimed that the NDA had no advance knowledge that Pakistan was going to be named the US's major non- Nato ally.

Singh repeated that a gas pipeline project could only be part of a large trade and economy context, indicating the most-favoured nation treatment was necessary before the negotiations could move forward.