The Hindu : Unequivocal support for Palestinian cause, says PM

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 25, 2003

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Unequivocal support for Palestinian cause, says PM

The Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, addressing the Indian community at a reception hosted in his honour by the Ambassador to the United States, Lalit Mansingh, in New York on Tuesday. — PTI

NEW YORK SEPT. 24. In a rebuff to critics of India's growing friendship with Israel, the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, today unequivocally came out in support of Palestinian statehood and said that violence in the region must stop.

Notwithstanding its friendly relations with Israel, Mr. Vajpayee asserted India's principled stand on Palestine and said: "We continue to champion the cause of the Arab world."

Speaking at a community reception hosted here by India's Ambassador to the United States, Lalit Mansingh, the Prime Minister said that an independent Palestinian state should be established and those who had been uprooted should be resettled.

"Violence is no solution to any problem and whatever is happening there, we are against it,'' he said.

The Prime Minister is also expected to refer to the West Asia crisis in his address to the United Nations General Assembly tomorrow.

Mr. Vajpayee praised the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, who was present at the reception, for discharging his duties first as Finance Minister and now as the External Affairs Minister with full responsibility.

Mr. Sinha said that India had changed unrecognisably in the last five years under the Prime Ministership of Mr. Vajpayee. "It is today a different country."

The External Affairs Minister said that wherever he went as a representative of India, including here, he was treated with respect and ``with a degree of importance that perhaps was not there 20 years ago".

Mr. Mansingh said that the census of 1900 showed that there were just 2,000 people of Indian origin in the U.S. The latest census puts the number at 1.8 million.

Recalling the contributions made by people of Indian origin to India's independence from British rule, he said that today they have "arrived",' with the highest per capita income of any ethnic group in the U.S.

He had no doubt that their talents will be available to realise the Prime Minister's dream of turning India into a developed country in 20 years.

The influential U.S. Indian American Political Action Committee (USINPAC) met Mr. Vajpayee and discussed its efforts to form of a pro-India lobby in the Senate along the lines of the India Caucus in the House of Representatives which now has 170 members.

A 11-member group from USINPAC said that it was trying to persuade more Republicans to join the Caucus. Mr. Vajpayee promised any help the committee needs from Indian policymakers.

The Prime Minister also received the Indo-Caribbean Group in the U.S, which expressed a desire to get closer to India.

They suggested that scholarships be given to enable people of Indian origin from the Caribbean islands to learn Hindi or Urdu. — PTI

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