Dr Jaishankar deplores ex-US Secy of State Pompeo's 'disrespectful' remarks on Sushma

$$ Pompeo in his book stated that India was forced to change its strategic position and reverse its otherwise independent foreign policy and join the four-nation Quad, owing to China's aggressive actions. $$

External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar has disapproved and deplores former US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo's remarks on late BJP leader and a former foreign minister Late Sushma Swaraj.

"I have seen a passage in Secretary Pompeo's book referring to Smt Sushma Swaraj ji. I always held her in great esteem and had an exceptionally close and warm relationship with her. I deplore the disrespectful colloquialism used for her," Dr Jaishankar said, reacting to Pompeo's remarks on Sushma Swaraj in his new book, 'Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love'. 

Sushma, Pompeo and others

Pompeo said that he never considered Sushma Swaraj as an 'important political player' and also maintained that as Secretary of State under Donald Trump, he worked much more closely with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, a close and trusted confidant of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"On the Indian side, my original counterpart was not an important player on the Indian foreign 
policy team," Pompeo writes in reference to Sushma Swaraj, who was External Affairs Minister 
between May 2014 and May 2019.

However, on Jaishankar, he wrote, "My second Indian counterpart was Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. 

In May 2019, we welcomed "J" as India's new foreign minister. I could not have asked for a better 

counterpart. I love this guy. English is one of the seven languages he speaks, and his is somewhat 

better than mine."

Dr Jaishankar also served as foreign secretary under Late Sushma Swaraj.

Pompeo's book has evoked several controversies.

The Pulitzer prize-winning reporter Tim Weiner, says, “Hatred animates this book. It’s got more 

venom than a quiver of cobras.”

Pompeo has deplored journalist Khashoggi’s murder. But he also writes that Khashoggi was not a 

journalist but “an activist who had supported the losing team” and criticises what he calls “faux outrage” 

over a killing that “made the media madder than a vegan in a slaughterhouse”.

On Monday, Khashoggi’s widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, told NBC News: “Whatever [Pompeo] mentions 

about my husband, he doesn’t know my husband. He should be silent and shut up the lies about 

my husband. It is such bad information and the wrong information … This is not acceptable.”

However, for his part Pompeo also hit back in a tweet, and said:

“Americans are safer because we didn’t label Saudi Arabia a pariah state. I never let the media bully 

me. Just because someone is a part-time stringer for the 'Washington Post' doesn’t make their life 

more important than our military serving in dangerous places protecting us all. I never forgot that.”

In the book, Pompeo also writes India-Pakistan military and aerial conflict in February 2019.

He says he will "never forget the night" he was in Hanoi at a summit "negotiating with the North Koreans on nuclear

weapons" when "India and Pakistan started threatening each other in connection with the decades-long dispute

over the northern border region of Kashmir".

Notably, the development relates to the Pulwama terror act by Pakistan and after New Delhi

launched aerial strikes against militants hideout in Pakistani territory.

In yet another episode, Pompeo says North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-un were not bothered at all 

by the US military presence in South Korea, as reported by 'The Korea Times'.

Pompeo said he told Kim Jong-un that the Chinese Communist Party was repeatedly telling the 

United States that the North Korean leader wants US Forces Korea (USFK) to withdraw from 

South Korea. In his response, Kim Jong-un said that the Chinese are liars.

Pompeo claims Kim talked about his concerns about China, which is considered as North Korea’s ally. Pompeo said he told Kim that China believes North Korea wants US forces out of South Korea, “Kim laughed and pounded on the table in sheer joy, exclaiming that the Chinese were liars", says the new book.

ends 

Pompeo in his book stated that India was forced to change its strategic position and reverse its otherwise independent foreign policy and join the four-nation  Quad, owing to China's aggressive actions.  

Pompeo called India the "wild card" in Quad because it was a nation founded on socialist ideology and spent the Cold War aligning with neither the US nor the erstwhile USSR. "The country (India) has always charted its own course without a true alliance system, and that is still mostly the case. But China's actions have caused India to change its strategic posture in the last few years," Pompeo wrote.

Pompeo, 59, explains how the Donald Trump administration succeeded in bringing India on board the Quad grouping.

The US, Japan, India and Australia had in 2017 given shape to the long-pending proposal of setting up the Quad or the Quadrilateral coalition to counter China's aggressive behaviour in the resource-rich Indo-Pacific region. 

"China forged a close partnership with Pakistan - India's arch rival - as one of the first steps in its Belt and Road Initiative.

"In June 2020, Chinese soldiers clubbed twenty Indian soldiers to death in a border skirmish. That bloody incident caused the Indian public to demand a change in their country's relationship with China," Pompeo writes.

"India banned TikTok and dozens of Chinese apps as part of its response. And a Chinese virus was killing hundreds of thousands of Indian citizens. I was sometimes asked why India had moved away from China, and my answer came straight from what I heard from Indian leadership, 'Wouldn't you?' times were changing - and creating an opportunity for us to try something new and pull the US and India more closely together than ever," Pompeo writes.