New Delhi, July 21 (IANS) External Affairs S.M. Krishna Wednesday ticked off Home Secretary G.K. Pillai for spoiling the atmosphere ahead of the talks between the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers, saying it would have been wiser if he had not made his comments ‘on the eve of my visit’.
Krishna was also critical of his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s abrasive style in his interaction with the media and for raking the issue of India’s alleged involvement in Balochistan after their talks in Islamabad July 15. He stressed on the need for civility in diplomacy.
‘Pillai could have waited till I came back to issue a statement. Perhaps it would have been wiser if that statement had not been made just on the eve of my visit,’ Krishna said in an interview to CNN-IBN editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai, the first time he has made public his displeasure with Pillai after the India-Pakistan talks deadlocked on the issue of terror.
‘When two foreign ministers are meeting after the Mumbai attack, there was a special significance for this meeting,’ he said.
‘Everyone who was privy to whatever was happening in government of India ought to have known that the right kind of atmosphere from India’s side should have been created for the talks to go on in a very normal manner, but unfortunately this episode happened,’ he added.
‘Well, I have had some discussions with the prime minister,’ Krishna replied, when asked if he had conveyed his dissatisfaction over Pillai’s remarks to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
On the eve of the talks, Pillai said in an interaction with the Indian Express that the interrogation of Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley revealed that Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) was involved in planning the Mumbai carnage ‘from beginning to end’.
Krishna’s admonition of Pillai comes a day after the home ministry appointed a spokesperson to interact with the media and amid speculation that the US was unhappy with the way India went public with Headley’s disclosures.
After his talks with Krishna July 15, Qureshi had said at a joint press conference that the remarks by Pillai were ‘uncalled for’ and unhelpful in normalising bilateral relations.
Qureshi said this in response to a journalist who asked him about the anti-India statements of Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai attack, and what Pakistan was doing to curb them.
The next day, Krishna said in Delhi that there was no comparison between Saeed and Pillai.
Krishna also criticized Qureshi’s style of diplomacy and for raking up India’s alleged role in fomenting insurgency in Pakistan’s resource-rich Balochistan province.
‘We should understand the spirit of Thimphu and the spirit of Thimphu was to make earnest effort to bring about reconciliation between two countries and I do not want that spirit to be eroded even by a remotest possible way,’ he said.
‘I think we can put forward any contention that a country can face in a most forceful way but there has to be dignity, there has to be civility and civility is certainly no weakness,’ he added.
Before Krishna left Islamabad July 16, Qureshi attacked India for ‘selectively’ focusing on terror and sidelining what he said were other vital bilateral issues like Jammu and Kashmir.
Krishna said the issue of Balochistan — where Islamabad accuses New Delhi of fomenting trouble — never figured in the discussions and asserted that India had no reason to destabilize Pakistan.
