World | India
Miliband's Kashmir comments cause diplomatic stir
India is upset at British Foreign Secretary David Miliband's comments on the Kashmir dispute and has said it does not need "unsolicited advice" on its internal issues, media reports said on Friday.
- Agencies
- Published: 23:33 January 16, 2009
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New Delhi: India is upset at British Foreign Secretary David Miliband's comments on the Kashmir dispute and has said it does not need "unsolicited advice" on its internal issues, media reports said on Friday.
Miliband, who concluded his three-day India visit and was due to meet Pakistani leaders on Friday, mentioned in a newspaper article that the Kashmir dispute between the neighbours must be resolved to deny extremists in the region "one of their main calls to arms."
Internal matters
Miliband said that the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, which has its roots in Pakistan and carried out the Mumbai attacks that left 173 dead, had Kashmir as its cause.
"Mr Miliband is entitled to his views, which are clearly his own and are evolving," India's External Affairs Ministry spokes-man Vishnu Prakash said in a statement Thursday evening.
"India is a free country and even if we do not share his views he is free to express them. However, we do not need unsolicited advice on internal matters of India like Jammu and Kashmir," Prakash said in his statement.
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During his visit to South Asia last week, Miliband said he was arguing that the best antidote to the terrorist threat in the long term is cooperation.
"Although I understand the current difficulties, resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms, and allow Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders," he wrote in the British daily The Guardian.
New Delhi is also unhappy with Miliband's position that those wanted by India for terror acts need not be handed over but tried in Pakistan.
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