The Indian delegation at the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday appeared a sombre lot.
Were External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, right, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, centre, and Hardip Singh Puri, India's Permanent Representative to the UN in New York, left, perturbed by Libyan dictator Muammmar Gadhafi's demand that Kashmir be made an independent country, an observation embedded in his 96-minute diatribe.
The Indian trio were making their debut at the UN General Assembly after the recent elevations to their respective perches at the Ministry of External Affairs.
Gadhafi -- whom the Indira Gandhi government cultivated in the 1970s and early 1980s -- was believed to be on India's side on the Kashmir dispute. All that changed on Wednesday when he declared, 'Kashmir should be an independent State, not Indian, not Pakistani. We should end this conflict. It should be a Ba'athist State between India and Pakistan.'
Of course, few world leaders -- not even in the Arab world -- take Gadhafi seriously these days so India's embarrassment may be temporary.
Meanwhile, we wonder if Gadhafi's Kashmir statement has a connection with the September 2 event in Tripoli to mark 40 years of the Libyan tyrant's reign, an event that both Sri Lankan President Mahindra Rajapakse -- Lankan soldiers even staged a parade on the occasion -- and Pakistan Prime Minister Raza Yousuf Gilani attended. Neither President Pratibha Patil nor Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were among the 40 heads of state and government who attended the jamboree in the desert.
Photograph: Jay Mandal/On Assignment
Also Read: Sheela Bhatt on Pranab Mukherjee's Libya visit in 2007 and what Benazir Bhutto told rediff.com about the Musharraf-Libya nexus five years ago.
