Natwar Singh hits back at Rahul Gandhi’s Pak-China remark

After external affairs minister Dr S Jaishankar, former MEA and Congress leader Natwar Singh, former diplomate Kanwar Sibal has said that Rahul Gandhi's remarks, regarding bringing China and Pakistan closer, were 'not completely accurate.' Natwar Singh said, “I'm surprised that nobody from the government's side got up to remind Rahul Gandhi that what he has said is not completely accurate. China and Pakistan have been close allies since the 1960s. It started in his great grandfather's time, who took the Kashmir issue to the United Nations.” Reacting to Rahul's claims of India being isolated because of the BJP government's foreign policy, Natwar Singh said, "Now, we are not isolated. We have good relations with our neighbors and the foreign policy is not a failure. We have a foreign minister who spent all his life dealing with foreign policy issues." Former diplomat Kanwal Sibal too, said that the China-Pakistan alliance began ‘well before’ the BJP came to power in India. “After the 1962 conflict, China-Pakistan saw an opportunity to strengthen their relations. Everyone is aware that the two have illegally collaborated in nuclear sector,” remarked Sibal.

Rahul Gandhi made these remarks on Wednesday, while speaking in the Lower House, as he replied to the debate on President Ram Nath Kovind's January 31 address to Parliament, which marked the beginning of the ongoing Budget session. "The Chinese have a very clear vision of what they want to do. The single biggest strategic goal of India's foreign policy has been to keep Pakistan and China separate. What you have done is, you have brought them together,” he said. Gandhi's comment  drew furious response from ministers and BJP leaders. 

Union Minister of Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi also slammed Congress and the governments led by the party before 2014, saying they have to get out of "Indira is India" belief to understand that there are no two Indias. Speaking on behalf of the BJP during an ongoing discussion on the Motion of Thanks to the President's address on Thursday, Naqvi said, "We need to get out of the hangover of thinking of Indira is India and India is Indira and Congress is the country and the country is Congress".  "We also destroyed political appeasement," Naqvi said. 

Even the US also said that it ‘won’t endorse' such remarks.US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said, "I'll leave it to the Pakistanis and PRC [People's Republic of China] to speak about their relationship. I certainly won't endorse those remarks."