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archive: Jaswant makes a mark on `Hard Talk'

Jaswant makes a mark on `Hard Talk'

The Times of India News Service
The Times of India
July 20, 1999


    Title: Jaswant makes a mark on `Hard Talk'
    Author: The Times of India News Service
    Publication: The Times of India
    Date: July 20, 1999
    
    NEW DELHI: The refusal to be provoked by frequent and often
    unwarranted interruptions; the answers given without obfuscation; the
    tone steady, cool and uniformly dignified; the tenor of the discussion
    kept pegged to matters of principle, values and civilised conduct
    among nations, that was External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh in his
    interview with Tim Sebastian, broadcast on Monday on BBC's ``Hard
    Talk''programme.
    
    Mr Singh's poise and dignity stood in sharp contrast to the hectoring
    and often ill-informed questions by Mr Sebastian. Perhaps Mr Singh was
    a shade too polite. He could have been more forthright in telling Mr
    Sebastian that while his questions pertaining to India's human rights
    record in Kashmir were in order, why was it that the human rights busy
    bodies have never once asked about the killings of innocent people by
    terrorists supported by Pakistan. This sort of selective indignation
    at human rights abuses by bodies like Amnesty International cast
    doubts on their impartiality.
    
    Overall however Mr Singh emerged from the programme as a voice of a
    responsible, mature and confident country, particularly when Mr
    Sebastian referred to India's obligations as a nuclear weapon state
    and on the question of international mediation in the Jammu and
    Kashmir.
    
    India stood firm in rejecting any foreign mediation in its dispute
    with Pakistan over Kashmir. ``Mediation is not an answer to
    Kashmir....The international community has to recognise reality,''
    Jaswant Singh said. But such intervention had worked in the
    Middle-East, Mr Sebastian said. To this the minister replied: ``Middle
    East is not India and India is not Middle East.''
    
    He also dismissed suggestions that by not accepting intervention on
    Jammu and Kashmir had something to hide. ``We have nothing to hide.''
    
    India's feeling of being let down by Pakistan came through clearly.
    ``Between countries nothing will work, no mediation, no intermediary
    role, unless there is a basic modicum of trust, goodwill and a desire
    to live together.''
    
    While Mr Singh said he was willing to talk to Clinton ``about any
    issue,'' he reiterated mediation was not an option. ``The main point
    is for Pakistan to understand that it cannot force the situation,'' he
    said.
    
    On reports of alleged torture, rape and extra-judicial killings by
    Indian security forces in Kashmir, Mr Singh said these charges were
    based on ``incorrect information''. He said ``every single''
    allegation or incident of human rights violation, was investigated by
    the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) headed by a former Supreme
    Court Chief Justice. Mr Sebastian tried to provoke the minister on
    India's refusal to permit Amnesty International to visit the border
    state. ``It is for Parliament to decide on this issue,'' an unruffled
    Mr Singh said.
    
    Asked why India had exercised its nuclear option when the five nuclear
    states were cutting down their arsenal, he countered by saying the UK
    and NATO were continuing to hold on to their stockpiles despite the
    end of the Cold War. ``Please don't lecture India (on the nuclear
    issue),'' he said while asserting that New Delhi believed in ``equal
    and legitimate security for all.''
    
    S.K. Singh, former foreign secretary, after watching the interview
    said, ``He did superbly well. Polite, smooth and firm. I was proud to
    be able to tell myself that this was my foreign minister.''
    



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