Official Spokesperson (Shri Syed Akbaruddin): Good afternoon friends. Before I begin, let me introduce some of my colleagues who have joined us today. On my right is Mr. Navtej Sarna who is Additional Secretary (International Organisations). On his right is Mr. T.S. Tirumurti who is Joint Secretary (United Nations) dealing with economic and social issues. On my left is Mr. Pavan Kapoor who is Joint Secretary (United Nations) dealing with political issues. The idea is that they will give you a sort of understanding of what the 68th session of the UN General Assembly will be.
But before that, I have a few announcements to make. I will take questions only on those announcements in the beginning. Subsequent to that there will be this briefing related to the United Nations General Assembly session. After that if any of you have questions, you are welcome to ask me on issues which are not covered either in my announcements or in their responses.
One final thing is that we will have a separate briefing on the Prime Minister’s visit to the United States, and his activities in the US as well as the UNGA. That briefing will be on the 20th by the Foreign Secretary. So, I would suggest you to please keep your questions on those aspects for a later date. You can now focus on the issues that we are now touching upon.
Also, as all of you know, each one gets one chance. So, choose your questions carefully. There will not be a second round of questions because given the number of people who are here we would not be able to accommodate anybody more than once. With those preliminary remarks, let me make the announcements that I have.
The first announcement is, as those of you who are following our advisories are perhaps aware, the Foreign Minister of Latvia Mr. Edgars Rinkevics is in New Delhi. Actually this morning he signed a Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement with India. The Indian signatory was the External Affairs Minister Shri Salman Khurshid.
With the signing of the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement, India and Latvia now have the economic architecture in place for deepening and expanding their bilateral relations. We had previously signed a Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement in 2011, and this fits in with that. We hope that the present bilateral trade, which is approximately 177 million, will increase following this agreement.
My next announcement relates to the visit of External Affairs Minister Shri Salman Khurshid to Canada. The External Affairs Minister will be travelling to Canada from the 21st to the 23rd of this month. The visit is primarily for the first round of the strategic dialogue between India and Canada.
If you could recollect, when Prime Minister Harper visited India last year, in perhaps November, there was an agreement that the External Affairs Ministers will meet annually for a strategic dialogue. And this is the first round of that strategic dialogue.
This will be held between the two Foreign Ministers – External Affairs Minister Shri Salman Khurshid and his Canadian counterpart Mr. John Baird – in Toronto on the 22nd. Subsequently, External Affairs Minister will also travel to Ottawa where he will meet other senior Ministers including the Minister for Economy, the Minister for Trade, Immigration and Natural Resources. From there the External Affairs Minister is scheduled to travel to the United Nations headquarters to join in during the United Nations General Assembly.
The last announcement that I have to make is that Dr. Ashwani Kumar, who is the Special Envoy of the Prime Minister to Japan, earlier today met the Japanese Prime Minister Mr. Shinzo Abe in Tokyo. The Special Envoy is on a three-day visit to Tokyo as part of preparations for the visit of Their Majesties later this year to India. As you are aware, the Emperor and Empress of Japan are to visit India the end of November. The appointment of Mr. Kumar was to ensure that their visit is given adequate importance and focus; and he is working towards that end.
He also used the opportunity of his meeting with the Prime Minister to reiterate Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s invitation to Prime Minister Abe for the annual summit which is to be held in New Delhi. During the next two days, the Special Envoy of the Prime Minister will also meet the Foreign Minister and the Minister for Economy and Trade, who was recently in India, as you are aware. He is separately also interacting with captains of industry to promote greater economic engagement between India and Japan.
That brings me to the conclusion of my three announcements. If any of you have questions on these, I will take them now.
Question: With regard to the visit of Their Majesties’ of Japan, has the itinerary been finalised yet? I see that we have Delhi and Chennai on the agenda so far. I just wanted to know if there is a visit being considered to Imphal perhaps with the relevance of the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Imphal falling next year and the great significance to the people of Japan …(Inaudible)… maybe up to 50,000 soldiers falling fighting …(Inaudible)… Had Mr. Kumar been speaking to his counterparts about that?
Official Spokesperson: I do not have a readout of what exactly he spoke. Because the meeting was about an hour ago, I do not have a readout of that. That said, many of your colleagues here are aware of the time that we take to announce the itinerary. And I think they are all very comfortable that we announce these specific schedules perhaps less than a week before the visit. So, we are quite some time ahead in those terms. Once we finalise those, we will certainly make it public.
Question: Do you anticipate that it will actually be considered? Given the gravity of the anniversary perhaps to both countries and the fact of different participations in the war, it will be a significant milestone for Their Majesties’ visit surely.
Official Spokesperson: I am certain the Japanese side will take into account what you said and we too will take that into account. But my point is that at this stage this was the first meeting of the Special Envoy who is on a three-day visit. I do not have a readout of what exactly was covered. Should we have that, we will certainly share it with all of you.
Question: When is Mr. Shinzo Abe coming to India?
Official Spokesperson: I just mentioned that we have reiterated that invitation for an annual summit. I did not indicate that he has accepted and the dates have to be finalised. Once that is done, we will let you know. Right now the principle focus and the primary visit that we are focusing on is the first ever visit of the Emperor and Empress of Japan to India. And any visit from Japan at a senior level will only be after that. So, our primary focus is end November, early December for the visit of Emperor and Empress of Japan which we are looking forward to.
If there are no more questions on this, I will request my colleague Mr. Navtej Sarna to speak to you for a short while about the issues related to the United Nations General Assembly and then the floor will be open for questions on that. Navtej.
Additional Secretary (International Organisations) (Shri Navtej Sarna): Thanks Akbar, and good afternoon friends. Good to be here with all of you. Let me start by giving you the basic structure of the forthcoming 68th UN General Assembly Session.
The high-level segment is essentially what we are going to focus on because I think that is of primary news interest and also involves the involvement of Heads of Government, Heads of State, Foreign Ministers. The high-level segment of this year’s Session is going to be from the 24th of September to the 1st of October. The General Debate carries on for three more days, to be exact from the 23rd to the 4th of October.
This year’s session is going to be presided over, that is the President of the General Assembly for the next one UN-year so to speak, is going to be John Ashe, who is the former Permanent Representative of Antigua and Barbuda. So, he will be presiding over the entire session.
Those of you who have been to these sessions and covered earlier sessions would know that the Heads of State, Heads of Government speak followed by Foreign Ministers. I will leave the details of PM’s visit for Foreign Secretary’s briefing. He will be speaking on the 28th. The External Affairs Minister is going to be in New York for the high-level segment. He is expected to reach there late on the 23rd evening, and will take part in the high-level meetings which are there going to be held as part of the UN Session, as well as several high-level meetings which various groupings and countries organise, utilising the presence of the dignitaries from different countries in one place in New York.
Just to give you an idea of these high-level meetings both within the UN and without the UN system but which will take place in that one week and which we hope to attend at different levels, those which we can at the level of External Affairs Minister certainly so, others at the level of Foreign Secretary, and yet others at the level of various other Ministers or delegates who would be travelling there.
I think it is important to underline that this year the high-level meetings also have a kind of connection between them which comes out of the theme of this General Assembly Session. The theme is going to be “The Post 2015 Development Agenda: Setting the Stage”. So, these high-level meetings are really going to be first time in a way that the entire international community is going to be focusing on the development agenda post-2015 in a concentrated, cross-cutting way. Not to say that we have not been talking about this for the last couple of years in different places, but here it will all sort of come to a head and hopefully a path forward will be charted.
So, the high-level meetings begin on 23rd September. The first one is a high-level meeting on disability on development. It is going to be followed the next day, that is on the 24th of September, by the inaugural meeting of the high-level political forum on sustainable development. This forum is the result of a direct decision taken in the Rio+20 Conference last year. And this is the first time that this forum is going to be meeting to see how to take this sustainable development agenda forward in keeping with the decisions that were taken at Rio+20 and thereby also imply that in keeping with the principles which are enshrined in Rio+20. This is a very very important aspect, particularly from the point of developing countries, from the point of India, that in the development process we stick to the Rio+20 political consensus and not try to chip away at it and not try to create new consensus and change the goalposts as we go along.
The third high-level meeting is going to be the special event on Millennium Development Goals. This takes place on the 25th of September. As you know, the Millennium Development Goals are supposed to come to an end 2015. Clearly much remains to be done on the MDGs. In some we have moved, not only as a country but as the world. There are many others in which we have not moved as fast as we wanted to. These are of critical importance to us, critical importance to developing countries. And we need to understand what is going to happen to them in 2015. Do we just drop them and move on or do we find a mechanism in which we are absorbed into the agenda that is worked out later?There is going to be a high-level dialogue on migration and development. Migration is another very important issue and this is going to take place on the 3rd and 4th of October. Besides that there is going to be a high-level meeting on nuclear disarmament. This is not development-related but it is a very important issue, again a very important issue for India. This will take place on the 26th of September.
There are other grouping meetings which are important. There is going to be a G77 Ministerial meeting, group of developing countries. There is going to be a NAM Ministerial meeting which again is traditionally extremely important for us. And there are going to be other smaller group meetings. There is a meeting of the BRICS Foreign Ministers. There is a meeting of the IBSA Foreign Ministers. And there is a meeting of the G4 Foreign Ministers. G4, as you know, is the group consisting of India, Japan, Germany and Brazil formed for the purpose of UN Security Council reforms.
So, these will take place all in a concentrated space of three or four days, and we will try to present India’s positions at each of these meetings at the highest level possible.
The External Affairs Minister would also be having a series of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the UNGA. This is always a very very difficult process of scheduling because we have to match schedules of various Foreign Ministers coming in and out of New York, and there are other commitments. But I think we are fairly confident that he would be having a series of very substantive meetings with Foreign Ministers. Some of those I have on my list –Foreign Minister of China, Foreign Minister of Egypt, Foreign Minister of Libya, Foreign Minister of Palestine, a meeting with the German Foreign Minister, and possibly also with the Foreign Minister of the UAE. As I said, these are always subject to last minute scheduling problems. More may happen. So, we are tying these up and I thought I should give you a heads-up that these are in a fairly advanced stage of planning, what we are looking forward to.
Besides that, of course the External Affairs Minister would be having other bilateral events in terms of bilateral US events, which we can talk about maybe later when you have the other bilateral briefing.
In any case, the 68th General Assembly Session is going to broadly follow up a number of important issues which were touched upon or we have been working upon in the previous one. Briefly to recap the 67th, it was a very important year for us, very important General Assembly Session for us not only because the General Assembly but because at least for part of the year we were still on the UN Security Council. And during our last few months, which fall into the 67th GA calendar, we did take up some very important issues which would be good to keep in mind.
We took up for instance during our Presidency in November, 2012, the whole issue of piracy which has been a very big issue for India and several other countries. And we brought it to the fore and not something which just happens off the Coast of Somalia. But we are sure that it has a number of related issues, humanitarian aspects, and political aspects. And this became the theme of a debate during our UN Security Council Presidency. We even managed to get a Presidential Statement out which set into focus several important concepts which deal with this modern-day challenge.
Also, as Chairman of the Counterterrorism Committee we brought focus on another aspect which is crucial for India’s security and that is the global financing of terrorism. We did it by holding an unprecedented number of meetings of the Committees which deal with the financing aspects to bring greater and greater focus on these issues because, as you know, one of the most important things in counterterrorism is cooperation at a global scale, information sharing, and cooperation among the law enforcement and other agencies.
We also focused on UN Security Council reforms in a big way. We managed to ginger up the process, so to speak, by working with the L69, which is a group of developing countries interested in Security Council reforms, and coming up with a common text between the L69 and the C10, which is the negotiating group for the African group. And this common text showed that there was possibility of coming together of two groups which people thought were locked into different positions. And India played a critical role in that.
We kept up the G4 process. There was a G4 meeting last year at the Ministerial level. Then there was a G4 follow-up at the Director-Generals’ level in Brazil in April this year, which I attended, which gave a greater impetus to what the G4 could be looking forward to do; and we hope to do that in this Ministerial meeting again.
We kept on pushing the Chairman of the Negotiating Group, Ambassador Tanin of Afghanistan to move towards a negotiating text, with limited success not because of his own desire not to do so but we were faced with a set of circumstances and political realities emanating in the previous Presidency which made it a bit difficult for him to move. But we are satisfied reasonably with the fact that the reform process we kept on the front burner, and we would continue to do so in the session to come.
We also focused on our development priorities in helping set up the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals. As you know, Rio+20 also mandated the international community to produce a set of Sustainable Development Goals. What these goals are going to be, how are they going to be negotiated, how are they going to be implemented, is all still an open question. But where it is being done is an Open Working Group. So, we pushed proactively with a set of developing countries to have this group set up, and most importantly to make sure that this Group takes decisions only by consensus. Four meetings of this group have now been held, and we have another four meetings coming up, and another five I think in the next year which will be working on these goals. This is just by way of a report card on some of the important issues that we were now finishing with this session.
The coming session, because of the high-level impetus given to development, I think is going to be very importantly focused on this 2015 Development Agenda. I have seen some material every year in the Indian press on this. I think it is something which is going to define our development paradigm in a globalised world. We cannot be following different paradigms from the rest of the world. We do get impacted. I think it is very important to focus on this and try to understand what is happening on this.
Let me very briefly tell you the process that has happened so far on this. One, I have already mentioned there is this Rio+20 process, which said make Sustainable Development Goals, have a high-level political forum. That is one aspect.
The second aspect is actually the high-level panel which was set up by the UN Secretary-General which consisted of the President of Indonesia, the Prime Minister of UK, and I think the President of Liberia. The high-level panel report was produced. Frankly speaking, we were a bit concerned that this high-level panel report should not miss out concerns of developing countries and should not miss out on our concerns. So, we very actively engaged through the year with our interlocutors on these issues, and kept underlining our concerns. To a large extent, I would say, these concerns were met. Not in whole, certainly. But we see openings there in that report in which we can now push our agenda. And this is only because of a very constant and a very persistent engagement that we kept up with our interlocutors on this.
The third activity that has been happening on this is a UNDP-sponsored process in which they have undertaken consultations I think in about 50 countries with different groups – students, labour unions, the industrial lobbies – to see what is important for that country and that is feeding into the Secretary-General’s …
All these three rivers so to speak have to come together somewhere. And where do they come together? What India wants? We want that they should come together in an intergovernmental negotiating process in which there is a level-playing ground, in which developing and developed countries can sit down together and have a genuine negotiation.
It has to be different from the MDGs. MDGs sort of came from the sky. There is a modern day Ten Commandments – you will do this, you will do this, you will do this, you will do this. That is fine because most of the MDGs were good. The one that was really good was that the developed countries would help finance these things, and that is the one that has not been met.
But this time we want that everything that we agree to is actually negotiated. So, we are hoping that with these high-level summits, these high-level events, these various streams will come together; an intergovernmental process will be announced, and will be actually set up, start work next year, by which time we would have done some amount of preparatory work on the Sustainable Development Goals, we will have some idea what to do with the remaining aspects of the MDGs and then we would take it forward.
Which direction do we want to take it forward? We want to keep the focus on poverty eradication – poverty eradication without qualifications. We hear things like, okay we will eradicate extreme poverty, or we will eradicate poverty as long as it does not impact on environment, or we will eradicate poverty in a sustainable fashion. Now, these are all very loaded terms. In a country like India and several other countries where poverty is an everyday reality, you want poverty eradication, period. You do not want it with qualifiers. We want it with if we know it can be done with economic growth. So, poverty eradication and economic growth, these are the crucial things and means of implementation.
And it is very important that your development agenda is not only for developing countries. Your development agenda should cover all countries. Your development agenda for instance should cover consumption patterns in developed countries because consumption patterns in developed countries impact upon our environment, impact upon various other things. Your development agenda should also cover reform of the world’s governing institutions, financial and political as far as we are concerned.
So, there are a huge number of priorities we have in this. Today is not the day but as we go along if any of you want to seriously pursue these aspects, we would be very happy to provide you with material or with briefings.
This is going to be a major focus for us during this. Hopefully, as the months of next year go on and we actually move through an intergovernmental process, things will begin to come together. That is one of the things which I wanted to explain at length.
I will touch upon some of the other aspects which will continue to be our focus whether in our statements, in our bilateral meetings, in our support of resolutions. UN Security Council reform is going to be really on the table again. We are going to work with the next President GA, Ambassador John Ashe, who we expect would have a more constructive role than the previous President. And we hope that the intergovernmental process which has already done nine rounds will now actually make that quality jump. He has got a sort of text in which he has put various people’s positions. But what he does not have is an actual text which can be negotiated, what is called in the UN lingo a Concise Working Document (CWD). So, what we need is a CWD on the table.
We will continue to lobby with the African Group because without the 53-member African Group coming on board, you are not going to get those votes in the General Assembly for reform. And we really need to take the message of the C10 and L69 common text to the African Group back into the capitals so that they get the political support of moving towards reform.
We are going to work with CARICOM, the Caribbean countries. They have come up with a very encouraging move a few months ago in which they have said yes we must have reform. They are willing to work with the African Group, they are willing to work with L69, and they are willing to move this to negotiations.
We are going to continue to work with G4. Here I think there is a lesson to be learnt from what happened in Brazil, which we would like to take forward in India frankly, because Brazil said that this is not something which should be left to New York, or should be left to the negotiating rooms. This needs outreach. This needs people to need writing about it, people need talking about it. So, after the G4 meeting they had a seminar of about a 100 people of largely media, academics and so on. And I was amazed that it resulted in about 60, 70 articles coming out. I was also amazed at how little the public out there knew about what was going on. So, we would like to take a lesson of that. We will be working with one of our think tanks and we are going to be probably setting up something on a smaller scale. I think that is something on which we would like all of you to be involved and to be part of.
The other issues which are going to be pushed, besides UN Security Council reform, are issues of …(Inaudible)… concern to us are: peacekeeping for instance in which India continues to be a major player, as you all know. The nature of peacekeeping is changing. The nature of decision making regarding peacekeeping is causing us concern in many ways. The nature of conflicts is changing. The classical role of peacekeeping is being eroded. And the peacekeepers are being asked to do more and more under difficult conditions. We have a concern as a major troop-contributing country. We have been pushing these concerns. We will continue to highlight these in various fora.
Terrorism is going to be ongoing subject which we will be following up. And of course there is going to be focus on the disarmament aspects where we have traditional resolutions to offer. There is going to be focus, although the main focus is in Geneva but when it comes back to New York, on human rights aspects. And you already know that we have an election coming up which is going to be the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for the UN Board of Auditors in November this year.
I am just going to stop there because I can see that I put some of you to sleep. So, I will stop there and maybe the questions will help revive the audience.
Official Spokesperson: Thank you Navtej. And all of you: arise, awake and stop not! Now the floor is yours.
Question: Sir, UN General Assembly mein Nawaz Sharif bhi jaayenge aur Prime Minister bhi jaayenge. Kya inki mulaqaat sambhav hai?
Official Spokesperson: Iske baare mein humne aapko beginning mein kaha tha ki 20 tareekh ko Videsh Sachiv khud baat karengi, aur Prime Minister ke engagements ke baare mein us briefing mein hum bataayenge. My point is very clear. We will answer about Prime Minister’s engagements on the 20th. So, please be patient and give us the space and time to respond to this, and we will respond to this.
Question: What will be the thrust of Prime Minister’s address to UNGA?
Additional Secretary (IO): This is going to be difficult one to answer at this stage because work is constantly going on on the Prime Minister’s Address.
Question: Talking of the UN Security Council reforms, when you say we are going to continue lobbing with the African Group, would there be some outreach or bilateral meetings in New York itself since so many African Ministers and others are going to be there?
Additional Secretary (IO): The way it works is that we have had a special delegation go down to the African Union Summit earlier this year where this was a major piece of conversation and major lobbying with each of the African Heads of Delegation. That is the right place to lobby. What happens in New York is almost a very technical-level negotiation which constantly goes on between the Missions and between negotiating groups, say the L69, and this is at Ambassador level. But I get your point. It is something which we will utilize every possible opportunity even in New York when our people are there. That is because what is being seen in New York in General Assembly statements at the Head of State, Head of Government, Foreign Minister level, is that the large majority of speakers who is in favour of UN reforms. We have to note those, we have to take those, and then we have to get down to the technical level and say this is what you are pushing, your President, your Prime Minister, and this is where we need to now get our heads together. So it is a constant process, Manish.
Question: On the counterterrorism issues, there are many organizations or persons being directly named from the UN Security Council and the member states are not taking appropriate action as they are supposed to take. Is it is a matter of concern? How would you focus on this in United Nations General Assembly or which forum will you raise this concern?
Additional Secretary (IO): We have been raising this when we were in the UN Security Council as Chairman of the Counterterrorism Committee. And this is something which we talk about every time we talk about terrorism that there are red lines, there are UN sanctions, and these must be respected, and these should not be allowed to be watered down from what have been accepted at an international level. We do not believe in minor distinctions on this in which people can be allowed to cross these lines depending upon political exigencies. I think this is something that we are constantly talking about. You are right, we will be talking about it in the Committees when it comes to discussing terrorism, and we will be talking about it in our general statements and our bilateral dialogues.
Question: This is regarding the same point you have raised about the global financing of terror. I think my country Syria has been inflicted by terrorists at the moment and more than 2000 dollars are being paid for each Al-Nusra recruit. So, there is a good amount of money spent. How do you think it is relevant in these talks at the UN when they interpret the law according to their own …?
Additional Secretary (IO): I mentioned it more in a thematic context, not pertaining to one particular arena of activity. It is very important thematically to accept these concepts and to decide to work together because this is not an on-off thing that today one part of the world is in trouble so we get activated, next we keep quiet for the next five years and so on. We have to have an international comprehensive effort, which is why India has been proposing for several years a Convention on Counterterrorism at the UN. And we are trying to push it, get it off the ground, and get it negotiated, and we are faced with all sorts of technicalities which are slowing it down. So, certainly we are going to be discussing the financing aspects, the cooperation aspects in all the terrorism bodies. We are no longer on the Security Council at the moment but there will be several occasions where we can. As far as Syria is concerned, I think that is a subject of another debate; and when and how the UN comes into it is going to be something which we are going to have to see.
Question: Sir, you are saying that we want to eradicate poverty without any qualifiers. Could you please elaborate how you would sell this ‘no qualifiers, no sustainability, no environment concerns’ at UNGA? You know our development record so far on MDGs is very very poor even if you compare it to South Asia. So, what is going to be our explanation?
Additional Secretary (IO): I do not think that our MDG record is that poor in two or three of those very critical MDGs. Some, yes we need much more to do. What I meant when I said we want to eradicate poverty without qualifications, it does not mean that we want to do it like that on our own. But certainly we do not want the goal of poverty eradication in international dialogue to be dimmed by putting on qualifiers. People say that people are poor here because you do not take care of environment. No. I think it was said by one of our former Prime Ministers that poverty it the biggest polluter. So, it is actually the other way around. That is what I meant. Certainly we are committed to Rio, we are committed to sustainable development but we are committed to a balanced approach. The economic, the social, and the environmental pillars of sustainable development should move together. You cannot leave out one at the cost of the other. That is what I meant.
Question: This question is related to the previous one. You said a high-level panel is preparing a report and you have to see that India’s major concerns are not missed out. What are these concerns which you see missing out?
Additional Secretary (IO): The high level panel has already given its report to the UN Secretary-General. Based on that, the UN Secretary-General has now given his report. So, our purpose in our conversations has been, and this is our position also, that the high-level panel report is a report which should be a good input. It should not be the end result because we have not had a chance to negotiate it. It is an input which will go into the negotiations. Concerns there were – I will give it to in a simple one-sentence form – we do not want the development agenda to be converted into a governance agenda.
The development agenda must remain a development agenda; it must retain its focus on poverty eradication and economic growth; and it should be for everybody; and it should have in itself means of sustaining the implementation. Basically like in Rio you had the two things of you need technology assistance and you need financing. How are you going to save the environment? So, you need technology sharing, you need financing, you need means of implementation. So, you cannot have governance which is global and financing which is domestic. We have to balance these. I must say that our conversations with the various interlocutors helped to introduce certain sense of balance, a little more balance in the recent report that we have seen from the UN Secretary-General. But now we would like to get it to the negotiating table and then make sure that. Not only India, there is a large majority of countries that are developing countries and they have their concerns also.Question: You spoke about a lack of implementation. Any bright ideas from our side whether it is CBDR or …?
Additional Secretary (IO): You took the words out of my mouth. CBDR is a very important Rio+20 or in fact a Rio principle. This Common But Differentiated Responsibilities in itself builds in the two aspects that I have mentioned about technology cooperation and sharing as well as financing. So, it is very important to keep the debate on Sustainable Development Goals as well as on the broader post-2015 development agenda on the Rio+20 principles, which means essentially CBDR, but not only.
Official Spokesperson: If we have no more questions on UNGA, let us move on to other aspects.
Question: Sir, His Highness Aga Khan is here in Delhi and he is meeting many dignitaries. Can you just throw some light on the purpose and outcome of the visit?
Official Spokesperson: Dr. Suman, the visit is ongoing. So, you would appreciate that I cannot indicate about the outcome. The Aga Khan Foundation has been actively supporting a lot of activities in Delhi and outside Delhi related to restoration for example, related to poverty alleviation. The Aga Khan Foundation is an important partner, with whom we do interact on a regular basis to promote socioeconomic development. In that context he is visiting India. We will of course let you know the outcome once all his meetings are over. I hope that clarifies the situation. Right now, even as we speak, he is inaugurating part of the restoration work of the Humayun’s Tomb.
Question: My question is related to the ongoing war crimes trial in Bangladesh in which several Jamaat-e-Islami leaders have been convicted – some got life term, some death sentences. However, several countries and international human rights organisations have criticised the process citing its various shortcomings and drawbacks. I just wanted to know what India’s take on the issue is. Do you think it is Bangladesh’s internal matter or do you have a certain opinion on that?
Official Spokesperson: I think even that statement that you said is an opinion. That said, I think we have said it previously that while this is an internal matter for Bangladesh and for the Bangladeshi people to decide on, we do understand that given the horrific crimes that were committed by those who are now being tried, we do understand and take into account the aspirations of the Bangladeshi people to try and bring a closure to this by ensuring that justice is provided. As regards what the procedural issues are, this is for the Bangladeshi people to decide and come to a decision on.
Question: Akbar, this is on Bangladesh, the question which was just asked. This relates to a more specific event. As you know, one of the convicts who was convicted in the 1971 war crimes case was given a lifer and he appealed to the Supreme Court of Bangladesh and the Supreme Court enhanced that punishment to capital punishment. As you know, these are the kind of cases which triggered the Shahbag Square demonstrations and the unrest there in the civil society. The question is, on this particular specific case do you have a reaction, does India have a take on this particular specific thing, and how does it impinge on the forthcoming elections there.
Official Spokesperson: Good try!
I think I have already responded to our generic view on the issue and on how we see it. On the specifics I responded to him by saying that we will not get into the process of this nor will we get into each and every specific case. But we have confidence in the justice system in Bangladesh and that it will deliver justice to the people of Bangladesh.
Question: Al Qaeda has given direction to its cadres not to attack Hindus and Muslims in Muslim-dominated countries. How do you see this development?
Official Spokesperson: You know our view on Al Qaeda that it is a terrorist organisation, that we are against terrorism, that we would like to see it extinguished. What it says is not a matter for us to respond to because as far as we are concerned it is evil personified.
Question: On the sidelines of UNGA, will India raise this issue with Italy of noncooperation in the Italian marines’ case? Or, will you raise this matter in any form there?
Official Spokesperson: I do not think why we should raise it separately. We are in contact with the Italian Government. In fact, just today, for your information, Mr. Staffan de Mistura, who is the Special Envoy of the Italian Government, met with the External Affairs Minister. We have explained to him that this is a case which relates to legal process. We as diplomats can try and facilitate an interaction between a legal viewpoint which the Italian Government has and another legal viewpoint which our Government has. But this is ultimately a legal issue. We have suggested that we will facilitate interactions on this matter, and Mr. De Mistura, it is my understanding, has agreed to stay back, and the process is on. So, why do we need to interact somewhere else on this? We are interacting with them on a regular basis.
Question: When the matter is sub judice, how do you consider it an interactive process? How do you further engage with the Italians on this when the matter is being considered by our courts?
Official Spokesperson: That is right, the matter is sub judice. But I do not think anybody is questioning that the judiciary has to decide on this. Ultimately what they are discussing is what process to adopt. And in that there can be different opinions between different viewpoints on this. I started by saying that this is a legal process. All we as diplomats can do is to try and facilitate direct interaction or understanding of each other’s legal views. If things are required, it will go to a legal process and be clarified. But if things can be worked out between the two parties who are lawyers on both the sides, perhaps we can take it forward. So, the issue is not that anybody is intervening in the legal process. The issue is only to perhaps translate what is in the legal view of a group of lawyers to another group of lawyers. That is where we are in this.
Question: On the four marines who are in Italy, India has been insisting that they be sent back to further the investigations. Staffan de Mistura today very clearly said that Italy is not going to send them back. Anything on that front? The Indian Administration and the Government has been insisting that they be sent back, but the Italian Government is only talking about the three options that they have given to India and are really not moving on at least looking at sending the four marines back.
Official Spokesperson: Geeta, as they say, half knowledge is always dangerous. You are talking of three options; there are other options also that are being considered. You will understand that this is an iterative process. I cannot get into outlining what options are there on the table, but there are several options including the three you said and others too.
Question: Recently the Foreign Secretary visited Nepal. If there is election in Nepal in November will India give actual support to the election?
Official Spokesperson: Our support to the election process in Nepal is largely logistical in nature, and we have already begun that process. That process entails provision of, for example, vehicles for the Election Commission. We provided vehicles for the Election Commission. We also are committed to a larger number of vehicles also for the security services. That is because an essential ingredient of an election process is to ensure safe and peaceful environment for the voters and in that context the Nepalese Government had requested us to provide vehicles, which we are in the process of providing additional vehicles. We have provided one set of vehicles and the rest are in the process and we hope to provide them by October.
Question: On Sushmita Banerjee case, anything on the probe that is going on? The Deputy Foreign Minister was here yesterday and he spoke to the Foreign Secretary.
Official Spokesperson: On the sad case of Dr. Sushmita Banerjee, things have evolved in the probe since we last met. While it was initially for us very distressing that an Indian woman was killed brutally, we now find that it is taking a disturbing turn. And that is that the Governor of Paktia Province has indicated to our Ambassador that those who are involved in this, based on arrests made since we last met here, seem to be what he described as Pakistani Taliban, and the indication was that they were based from areas beyond Afghanistan borders. This is extremely disturbing for us. But we have left the investigation part in the hands of the investigating authorities in whom we have full confidence. And this is what they have shared with us so far. We understand that six to seven people have been arrested. What is coming out from them is what has been shared with others too, and they have shared it with us. We will follow this case with laser-like precision because this is something extremely disturbing.Question: Can you clarify India’s position on participation in Commonwealth’s Heads of Government meeting slated sometime at Colombo?
Official Spokesperson: Our view has been that we will take a call on this in due course. And this has also been reflected elsewhere including by the organisers. We will take a call well in time and we will also inform you on this.
Question: Any readout on …(Inaudible)…
Official Spokesperson: This is a Ministry of Defence issue and this is your second question.
Question: What is your reaction on firing in Poonch by Pakistani side in Mendhar.
Official Spokesperson: I have always said that what happens on the border is for the sentinels of the border to respond to and they will respond. You have heard me say this several times. Nice try again!
Question: This is relating to Iran’s rupee-trade agreement with India on crude oil exports. Has Iran expressed any apprehension on payment by Indian side in rupee terms? I believe there was some kind of agreement that for some imports of crude India will be able to pay 100 per cent in rupees, but they no longer want to go ahead with that.
Official Spokesperson: This is your take on it I understand.
Question: This was a report in newspapers.
Official Spokesperson: My point is that I do not know whether the Iranian Government ever told this that they were willing to take 100 per cent. My understanding is that there is a percentage agreed to between Iran and India in terms of how we will pay for crude. And that is, 45 per cent and 55 per cent. The rest is your take on it.
Thank you very much.
(Concluded)
New Delhi
September 18, 2013
