NEW DELHI: External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid has said India was not and would not be part of “anybody’s scheme of things” and highlighted India’s role in the BRICS Forum in view of the changing equations in a multi-polar world.
He, however, said nothing would prevent India’s rapid engagement with China.
He was commenting on the new impetus in Sino-Indian ties.
“This is the reflection of a current, contemporary situation in which there are different expectations from India, but still expectations of leadership. And, we are trying to fulfill those,” Mr Khurshid said in an interview to a Singapore think tank.
Mr Khurshid said people speculated about US position on pivot, on re-balancing towards Asia and there were methodologies of and connectivity that this part of the world had with China despite differences on certain dimensions.
“But we are, I think, lucky in that our position is that we will not be part of anybody else’s scheme of things and, therefore, we are not,” he added.
He said the US was eager to extricate itself from military conflicts in West Asia and deploy attention to Asia where, as US President Barack Obama put it, “the action’s going to be.”
Many see the American Asia pivot as a bid to contain China, according to The BRICSPOST.
The External Affairs Minister had advocated China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) because, that allowed China to participate in a larger frame of things in which India was a willing partner.
Mr Khurshid described as “incremental” the new Border Defence
Cooperation Agreement (BDCA) signed with China during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Beijing last month.
“In parallel, we are actually talking in the Special Representatives forum. We have done 16 rounds. We are talking about the basic principles followed by the basic format by which we will be able to find a resolution. We know that it can’t be done in a hurry,” he said, adding that China also knew it could not be done in a hurry.
The Minister said New Delhi had independent ties with China and the US, dismissing any suggestion of linkage.
“We will never be allies of the US. We will be friends, strategic partners, not allies. And similarly we will be strategic partners with China. Hopefully, we will become friends with China when all our issues are resolved. We have a very good working relationship with them, but we have things to resolve with them,” he added.
He said India provided intrinsic and important link between the developing and the developed world and India’s expectation was reflected in people supporting India for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). (AGENCIES)
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