By IANS,
New Delhi : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday lambasted External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna for seeking political settlement with the Taliban in Afghanistan and also for saying that there is no military solution to the conflict in the war-ravaged country.
On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Krishna told the Wall Street Journal in an interview: “There is no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan and the NATO combat operations should give way to a political settlement with the Taliban.”
Commenting on this, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said: “This is a very loaded statement and coming from the foreign minister of India, has far-reaching implications.”
Citing Taliban’s anti-India objectives, the BJP asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to clarify the Indian government’s stand on the issue.
“The most important question is about the objective of Taliban itself, which stands as a gruesome reminder of torture, massacre, murder and brutal killing. Left to itself, it would go to any extent to dismember India,” Prasad told reporters.
“Yet, Krishna without realising the consequence has commented. He, in fact, has made it a habit to speak out of turn without any proper homework and at a great cost to our strategic interest,” the BJP spokesperson said.
“We demand that Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh must immediately explain as to what (the) government of India’s position is on such utterly irresponsible comments of the foreign minister,” Prasad asserted.