Indo-Saudi joint statement on terrorism targets Iran, not Pakistan, Modi "charmed"

A major “outcome” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent Saudi visit (April 2-3), highlighted by his “spin doctors”, is that the two countries are entering an unprecedented level of cooperation and coordination in the security field in the fight against terrorism. Facts, however, have come to light suggesting that the India-Saudi Arabia joint statement seeks to target Iran, and not Pakistan, for terrorism.
Revealing this, a former Indian diplomat, MK Bhadrakumar, in a recent blog has said that “a dark cloud has appeared on the horizon in no time” over the four paragraphs devoted to terrorism in the joint declaration. “A Saudi official”, he says, has claimed that “they read the joint statement largely as aimed at Iran, which, they believe is fostering terrorism in the region.”
“Of course, our security czars had assumed that Modi brilliantly secured Saudi Arabia’s support in controlling Pakistani state-sponsorship of terrorism”, Bhadrakumar, who served in the Indian Foreign Service for three decades and served as ambassador to Uzbekistan and Turkey, regrets.
Apart from two postings in the former Soviet Union, his assignments abroad include South Korea, Sri Lanka, West Germany, Kuwait, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“In fact”, says the ex-diplomat, who is currently a foreign policy expert at the Mumbai-based think tank, Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations , “The Pakistani coverage of Modi’s Saudi visit confirms an impression that Salman may have used Modi’s shoulder to take a pot-shot at the Iranians.”
“Perhaps that explains why Saudi King Salman felt so obliged to Modi as to confer the Abdulaziz Sash (the highest Saudi civilian honour), our PM’s controversial reputation on the Arab Street as the ‘butcher of Gujarat’ notwithstanding”, Bhadrakumar underlines.
“Unsurprisingly, adrenaline began flowing in the Saudi veins and they have since imposed new measures against Iran by closing the Saudi air space to Iranian civilian flights and prohibiting tankers carrying Iranian crude from transiting Saudi waters (here and here)”, he says.
“Salman probably concluded that with Modi on his side, Iran’s regional ‘isolation’ is now complete. Indeed, the Saudis have offered to Modi that they can replace Iran as India’s key energy partner in the region. They are paranoid about the prospect of an imminent reset of India-Iran ties”, he points out.
Calling King Salman conferring on Modi the Abdulaziz Sash a “charm offensive”, Bhadrakumar says, “The known unknowns assume greater significance than what the joint statement spells out”, adding, “We know it is a high honor. But we do not know what Modi did to deserve it.”
While “Modi joins a list of recipients who include Silvio Berlusconi, David Cameron, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, Abdel Fattah Sissi, Shinzo Abe, Joko Widodo”, the expert diplomat says, “The recipients also include three Pakistani generals – Tariq Majid, formerly chairman of joint chiefs of staff committee, former army chief Pervez Musharraf and current army chief Raheel Sharif.”
“The Abdulaziz Sash was conjured up only in the seventies and Zia-ul-Haq narrowly missed it, despite being the best-ever friend Saudis ever had. But the glaring absence of any of Pakistan’s civilian leaders will be noted. Obviously, Saudis think that power flows through the barrel of the gun in Islamabad”, he points out.
“Interestingly, the recipients also included Ali Shamkhani, formerly Iran’s defence minister (currently heading the National Security Council), a British naval chief, the chief of staff of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Force, a NATO commander and a French air chief – and, intriguingly, a British ambassador by name Alan Munro”, Bhadrakumar says.
“Indeed, Saudis adopt strange criteria. The Arabian king’s wandering mind apparently takes fleeting fancy for someone for reasons best known to him. What could it be about Modi that arrested King Salman’s meandering thoughts – the 80-year old monarch suffers from Alzheimer’s – we do not know”, he adds.

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu. The most striking comment came from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who stated : "When a train derailed in the 1950s, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned. On the same morality, I demand PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Naidu resign so that a free and fair inquiry can be held. All that Modi and his associates have been doing so far is gallivanting, which must stop." Amidst widespread mourning, some fringe elements sought to communalize the tragedy. One post ...

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Search This Blog