ISLAMABAD: India on Thursday hit out at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his four days old statement and the United Kingdom’s foreign minister Nigel Adams for their comments on violence in New Delhi. Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said Erdogan’s comments were “factually inaccurate” and driven by his “political agenda”.
Last week, the Turkish president had severely criticised India for anti-Muslim incidents in Delhi and call them “massacres of Muslims”.
Kumar said India had made a strong demarche on the matter with the Turkish ambassador in Delhi. “We do not expect such irresponsible statements from a Head of State,” Kumar said.
On the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights approaching the Supreme Court against the citizenship amendment law, Kumar said it is now for the top court to decide on the issue.
“At this sensitive time, we would urge people not to make any irresponsible comments and not to be influenced by selective and unsubstantiated narrative on the matter,” he said. After India summoned the Iranian ambassador over remarks of the country’s foreign minister on the Delhi riots, the country’s supreme leader Ayotallah Khamenei said that India has to confront “extremist Hindus and their parties” to prevent its isolation “from the world of Islam”.
As part of the diplomatic fallout, the Iranian Ambassador Ali Chegeni had also been called to South Block after foreign minister Javed Zarif had called on the Indian government to “not let senseless thuggery prevail” after deploring “organised violence against Indian Muslims”.
The MEA spokesperson had said on March 3 that Zarif’s “selective and tendentious characterisation of recent events in Delhi are not acceptable. We do not expect such comments from a country like Iran,” he added. On Thursday evening, the Iranian supreme leader tweeted, “The hearts of Muslims all over the world are grieving over the massacre of Muslims in India. The govt of India should confront extremist Hindus & their parties & stop the massacre of Muslims in order to prevent India’s isolation from the world of Islam”.
Last week, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) had condemned the Delhi riots and mentioned that the destruction of property had chiefly targeted Muslims. The Indian spokesperson urged “bodies like the OIC” not to make “irresponsible statements” at this “sensitive time”. The Turkish president had said in a speech in Ankara that India had become a country where “massacres of Muslims” are widespread and perpetrated by Hindus.
The UK had previously expressed concern about the potential negative impact of the Citizenship Amendment Act to India at least twice in the last one month.
Earlier, on February 7, British high commission officials had raised concern about the police response to the protests with the state government of Uttar Pradesh on February 7.
“Our former high commissioner in New Delhi, Sir Dominic Asquith, also raised the issue with the government of India last month, as did foreign and commonwealth office officials with the Indian high commission in London,” said the British minister. Meanwhile, diplomatic observers have failed to comprehend the term of “sensitive times” being used by India for justifying the atrocities against the Muslims in India.
