The Hindu : National : ‘Sen may be summoned but not recalled’

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 22, 2007
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National

‘Sen may be summoned but not recalled’

Special Correspondent

Ronen Sen

NEW DELHI: India is likely to summon its Ambassador to the U.S., Ronen Sen, to the capital for stoking a “needless controversy” but is not inclined to remove him from the post, said highly placed Government sources. As the issue is yet to be completely played out politically, the sources said this was the Government’s thinking at the moment. “He could be called and talked to but we won’t remove him at this juncture,” they said.

Mr. Sen, one of the leading negotiators in the nuclear deal with the U.S., set off a furore in Parliament after he was reported as saying: “It has been approved here [Washington] by the President, and there [New Delhi] it’s been approved by the Indian Cabinet. So why do you have all this running around like headless chicken, looking for a comment here or comment there, and these little storms in a tea cup?”

In both Houses, agitated MPs from the Left, the National Democratic Alliance and the United National Progressive Alliance felt the reference to headless chicken was about them. Mr. Sen said the comment was about “my media friends” but admitted that he could have been more tactful.

The members also took umbrage at Mr. Sen’s inability to understand “why we don’t have a little bit of confidence” and saying that he was “really amazed” over the political differences in India over the deal. “I can understand such a debate immediately after independence. But 60 years after independence! I am really bothered that 60 years after independence, they are so insecure — that we have not grown up, this lack of confidence and lack of self-respect.”

CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury, demanding his recall, said it was unfortunate for a civil servant to judge a debate in Parliament that had not yet taken place.

Referring to the U.S. acquiescence to loosen nuclear laws to India, Mr. Sen said, “there has been no parallel of a single country exemption to any of the international regimes. Not in the 21st century, the 20th, 19th, 18th or in any century. All what we are doing is absolutely unprecedented.”

Later, the Ambassador said he had an off-the-record conversation with the correspondent giving some assessments on the subject. A number of the comments were, however, misunderstood or misquoted or quoted out of context. He further said some of the comments were made in his personal capacity and did not reflect the views of the Government.

The author of the report, Aziz Haniffa said the comments were made over phone on August 19 morning and at no point of time did Mr. Sen say the conversation was off-the-record. “I have a very good relationship with Mr. Sen ever since he was posted in Washington, and we regularly talk to each other on various aspects of the U.S.-India relationship, and whenever he has said a conversation is off-the-record or on background, I have always honoured the ground rules.”

“But on this occasion, I repeat, he did not specify that our conversation was off-the-record or on background,” he added.

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