Natwar Singh disagrees with Rahul Gandhi, says China, Pakistan have been close allies since 1960s

Former Foreign Minister (FM) Natwar Singh on Thursday completely disagreed with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's statement that the BJP government's policies have brought "China and Pakistan together" while hitting back at Wayanad MP saying it was his great grandfather's (First PM of India Jawaharlal Nehru) who took the Kashmir issue to United Nations.

'I am surprised that nobody from the government side got up to remind Rahul Gandhi that what he has said is not completely accurate because China and Pakistan have been close allies since the 60s," said Singh said during an exclusive interview with ANI.

Natwar Singh, who was the Foreign Minister during UPA's tenure in 2004 when Manmohan Singh was the PM, took a dig at Rahul Gandhi's ignorance and said, "It started in his great grandfather's time (first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru). His great grandfather took the Kashmir issue to the United Nations and it is still there. His great grandfather had put so much faith in China that we were not prepared when the Chinese attacked us. These are historical facts and nobody is making them up."

Rebutting to Rahul Gandhi's statement on the Motion of Thanks to President's Address in Lok Sabha of "India being isolated", the former Foreign Minister underscored the fact that India is not isolated and it has good relations with its neighbours.

He also lauded External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar over his remarks that "some history lessons are in order" and that Pakistan illegally handed over the Shaksgam Valley to China in 1963, when the Congress government was in office.

"We are not isolated. We have good relations with our neighbours and our foreign policy is not a failure. We have a foreign minister who has spent all his life dealing with foreign policy. Our foreign minister was well informed and I am glad he replied to what Rahul Gandhi said yesterday," said Singh.

The former FM highlighted that India now is strong enough to repulse their (Pakistan and China) attack and "if they think of attacking India it will lead to very serious consequences".

"They (China and Pakistan) have built roads near their borders and they are perfectly entitled to. But at the moment, they also know that if they were to attack us, it will lead to very serious consequences because we are not as weak as we were in 1962. They tried in the Ladakh area and the Indian Army pushed them back. So, it's simple, I don't see that security threat to India. We should be prepared and we are prepared," Singh further added.

On the statement made by US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price regarding the US referring to Pakistan as its ally, he said, "I think he (Ned Price) is quite right because they don't want to get involved in it. For anybody from the State Department, this is the right statement to make and it is for Pakistan and China to respond. Now, whether they will respond or not, I don't know.

Meanwhile, ex-Foreign Office Spokesman, in an exclusive interview to ANI, Vishnu Prakash was "astounded by the tone and tenor of the remarks that Rahul Gandhi made." He said, "The way he blended facts and fiction. It seems that India has become independent in 2014 and there was no history before that. The most surprising part is the charge that India has been isolated. Nobody can come to this conclusion unless one is reading Pakistani and Chinese media."

"In fact, I believe that India's stock is higher. To say that China and Pakistan have formed an alliance in the last 7 years again betrays the ignorance of rudimentary history. We all know that the alliance was built-in 1963 so on, so forth. It was indeed very surprising that somebody of the stature of Rahul Gandhi would level this kind of charges against the government to score a few brownie points," Prakash said as he mocked the baseless charges of Rahul Gandhi.

Foreign affairs specialist Prakash said that Pakistan has time and again played both sides, harmed the American interests and yet the US continues to believe in Pakistan, which defies logic.

"American policy towards China is not understood. I think that Pakistan is a weak spot for the US," he added.

Former Indian Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal said that Jaishankar has aptly responded to what Rahul Gandhi said and gave some very good historical facts.

"After the 1962 conflict, both China and Pakistan saw an opportunity to strengthen and develop their relations to put strategic pressure on India. As part of that bargain in 1963 agreement between China and Pakistan was signed, even though there is no border between the two countries. Moreover, it was ceded to China by Pakistan," said Sibal in an exclusive interview with ANI.

Later, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in 2013, making further use of the illegal connections between China and Pakistan to consolidate their bilateral ties including Shaksgam Valley to China in 1963.

"We have been publically opposing Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and CPEC as a violation of our sovereignty right from 2013 onwards," added Sibal.

Moreover, China and Pakistan have illegally cooperated in the nuclear sector in violation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), a legal instrument treated as the cornerstone of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.

"This collaboration (China and Pakistan) began long before BJP came to power. In the 1980s, China transferred nuclear missile technology to Pakistan. China also transferred designs of nuclear weapons to Pakistan and all this was done to strategically corner India," said former Indian Foreign Secretary.

Regarding the US terming Pakistan as their strategic partner even after Afghanistan's fiasco, where the Taliban took control of the nation in the last mid-August, Sibal said, "This has been their position always in terms of balancing India and Pakistan as much as they can, not understanding the fact that Pakistan has been actually responsible for defeat in Afghanistan. Americans themselves have been talking about Pakistani linkages with the Taliban, the Haqqani group and many others that Islamabad gave shelter who were on UN/US-designated terrorist list, but, they have never allowed the relationship with Pakistan to collapse."

"They imposed draconian sanctions on Iran but there were no sanctions against Pakistan," he added.

"Much more important than this is the 2005 nuclear deal that India and US signed. Immediately after the deal, the US declared Pakistan as a 'major non-NATO ally', this was to bring about a balance between India and Pakistan in a different way," said Sibal.

Responding to China's People's Liberation Army's regimental commander, who had suffered severe injuries during the Galwan clash, became the torchbearer at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Torch Relay, he said, "I think this is again Chinese ploy to mask the fact that they committed aggression against us and honouring the commander by making him the torchbearer at Beijing Winter Olympics. This is a part and parcel of propaganda, psychological warfare by the Chinese."

( With inputs from ANI )