India-Pakistan delegations to face off in Washington DC, Tharoor confident of getting India’s message across

BRASALIA: It’s crunch time for India’s All-Party Delegation that will now head to the United States in its outreach efforts post Operation Sindoor.

Interestingly, the Indian delegation will see a face-off with a Pakistani delegation led by Bilawal Bhutto, which will also be in the US at the same time.
India’s delegation leader and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, however, is confident of pushing India’s message on terrorism across.

Tharoor, while speaking to ANI, said that the US media is a difficult space, but those who are against terrorism and deeply care about South East Asia and are against terrorism will listen to India.

“In Washington, we’ll have the interesting phenomenon of the Pakistani delegation in America, and almost exactly the same days… Tomorrow almost they will be in Washington, while we are in Washington on the same date. So there’s going to be perhaps an increase in interest because there are two duelling delegations in the same city,” Tharoor told ANI, as the delegation he is leading will be in the US for its last leg of the visit.

Tharoor said that though India’s case might not be at the top of the agenda for the US media, India can get its message across easily.

“It’s a challenging environment. America is a very crowded media space, the world’s news generator. Therefore, our story may not be at the top of their minds. But if we can get the attention of those who care about South Asia, those who care about India, those who care about terrorism, we can get our message across very, very easily,” he said.

Tharoor said that the delegation has meetings set up with influential government officials and committees which formulate public opinion.

He said, “In Washington we have meetings set up with the entire range of public opinion in Washington, government officials, legislators, there are senators and congressmen, various committees in the House and the Senate, think tanks who are very influential in Washington, particularly those focusing on foreign policy, media and some public addresses, like, for example, the National Press Club… I’ve been asked to give six or seven interviews, seven or eight interviews to individual American channels and broadcasters, podcasters, and so on,” he said.

Tharoor said that the US is important to India in terms of defence, intelligence sharing, QUAD, etc.

“The US is important to us at all levels because frankly the Security Council in a sense is a small part of our relationship with the US which is huge, whether it comes to trade, whether it comes to defence, whether it comes intelligence sharing, whether it comes to our participation in the QUAD in the G-20, there are just so many avenues in which we cooperate with the US,” he said.

Tharoor added that it’s no coincidence that Pakistan sent its own delegation, but they are not covering as many countries as India is. They are covering countries that they deem important.

“It’s no accident that the Pakistanis have also sent a delegation abroad, but they’re not going to as many countries as the Indian delegations are. They’re focusing on what they consider a few key capitals, namely, Washington, Brussels. London. That seems to be the thrust of the Pakistani effort. We have gone to all those capitals and more,” he said.

Tharoor said that he has enormous respect for the US, but denied claims that the US had mediated in reaching the cessation of hostilities. He added that India never wanted war.

“We have enormous respect for the American presidency, and we will speak with that respect in mind. But broadly speaking, our understanding is a bit different… No one needed to persuade us to stop. We had already said to stop. If there was any persuasion by the American president or his senior officials, it would have been persuasion of the Pakistanis. They would have had to be persuaded. We don’t need to be persuaded because we don’t want war. We want to focus on development. That’s the basic message,” he said.

“We had consistently said from the very beginning on May 7th that we are not interested in prolonging the conflict. This is not the opening salvo in some sort of war. All it is is retribution against the terrorists, period. If Pakistan had not reacted, we would not have reacted,” he added.

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on May 17 stated that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had tasked him to lead a delegation to present Pakistan’s case on the recent escalations of tensions between the two nations.

The delegation is led by Shashi Tharoor, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) and Chairperson of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs. The nine-member delegation includes Members of Parliament from across the political spectrum, reflecting the vibrant and inclusive democratic character of India. The delegation comprises Sarfaraz Ahmad, Ganti Harish Madhur, Shashank Mani Tripathi, Bhubaneswar Kalita, Tejasvi Surya, and Ambassador Taranjit Singh Sandhu. (ANI)