The Hindu : Unwarranted, says India

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 24, 2003

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Unwarranted, says India

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI Jan. 23. India today termed the expected Pakistani decision to expel four Indian officials from its diplomatic mission in Islamabad as entirely unwarranted.

As Pakistan drags India into a primitive game of harassing diplomats and tit-for-tat expulsions, there is a growing concern here that India's focus is being taken away from the more urgent challenges facing the nation.

A spokesman of the Foreign Office here said the allegations of spying against the expelled Indian officials in Islamabad were "baseless and false charges".

"It is a clear act of retaliation against a very considered" move by India to expel four officials from the Pakistani High Commission here yesterday, the spokesman said.

The Indian move itself was a consequence of the sustained public harassment of the senior-most Indian diplomat in Islamabad, Sudhir Vyas, over the last few days.

If there were any expectations in New Delhi that the problem of Pakistan would disappear by refusing to engage it, those are turning out to be wrong.

Pakistan has once again demonstrated that it has many ways of drawing attention to itself and the tensions with India.

At a moment, when India should have been focusing like a laser beam on the impending war in the Persian Gulf and the extraordinary political cleavage that is opening up between the United States and Europe, New Delhi is being drawn into a street diplomacy with Pakistan.

The deepening crisis in the Gulf and the widening trans-Atlantic rift have the potential to redraw the contours of India's regional security environment and induce fundamental changes in the global order.

India might have had no option but to respond with some vigour to the unacceptable treatment being meted out to its Charge d' Affaires in Islamabad.

But New Delhi will have to find a way to prevent this bout of diplomatic confrontation with Pakistan from spiralling out of control and distracting it from the more consequential agenda that is unfolding in the region and the world.

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