NEW DELHI: Striking a different note, Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari on Thursday voiced support for the Centre’s ‘cautious approach’ towards the ongoing conflict between US-Israel and Iran. The remarks come at a time when the party leadership has raised serious doubts about the direction and credibility of India’s foreign policy.
Speaking to the media, Tharoor said he understands the Indian government’s desire to take a cautious stand on the conflict, and hoped that it could make a public call to both sides to end the war quickly. He said India has enormous stakes in what is going on and its energy security is dependent on the situation in the Gulf, including its LPG and LNG imports.
“We have 9 million citizens living there, which are an important source of remittances, and their safety is naturally a priority; there are investments coming to us from countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and we have very important overall trade relations as well as political interest and security cooperation, all of tha,” the Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram said.
“You don’t want to see that jeopardised. So for us, peace and stability in the Middle East-West Asia is extremely important,” he added. Earlier, in a newspaper column, Tharoor wrote that while the conflict raises concerns under international law, India’s restraint reflects “strategic prudence and a clear-eyed assessment of national interest”.
Echoing similar sentiments, Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari noted that India’s approach reflects strategic autonomy. “It is important to understand that there is not one war which is happening in West Asia. There are multiple wars which are taking place. What is happening between Israel and Iran and the US, taking a side, is not just about the Middle East dynamic on its own... Well, it’s not our war. We’ve always been rather marginal players in the greater Middle East,” he said. “If we are circumspect, I think probably we are doing the right thing, because that is really what strategic autonomy is about, the ability to protect your interests and navigate,” he added.
The Congress’s top leaders Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi had attacked the Centre’s for its “silence” on the assassination of Iran’s former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and said “a compromised prime minister no doubt wants to avoid antagonising his American and Israeli friend”.
The opposition had said India rightly condemned Iran’s attacks on Gulf states but was “completely quiet” on the US-Israeli assault on Iran in the first place. In a scathing criticism of the Centre, Sonia had said that its silence on the targeted assassination of Khamenei is not neutral but an abdication, and raises serious doubts about the direction and credibility of India’s foreign policy.
Asked about assertions that India should have condemned the assassination of Khamenei, Tharoor said, “I don’t know about condemning it, but we should certainly have condoled it. After all, he was the spiritual leader of a country with which he have friendly relations. It would have been appropriate, the day it happened, for us to express public condolences and share the grief of his loved ones and of his nation just as two years ago when president Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash, we immediately issued a condolence as well as announced national mourning.” Tharoor noted Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri signed the condolence book, which was a “good thing”.