“Whoever talks of war is irresponsible”: German envoy
Photo: Prokerala.com
By Aditi Bhaduri
Сalling India’s abrogation of Article 370 of the constitutino a “bilateral issue ”, German Ambassador to India Walter J. Lindner said that Germany would like to see bilateral contacts remaining between India and Pakistan. He said that Kashmir was an ‘bilateral and internal issue’ but had one that had regional consequences. However, he termed Imran Khan’s veiled and not so veiled threats of war which the Pakistani premier has been regularly issuing, including at his recent UN General Assembly presentation, since India’s moves on Jammu and Kashmir on August 5th, as ” irresponsible’. At the UN General Assembly recently Khan talked of a pre-emptive ‘bloodbath’ in Kashmir, and raised the spectre of radicalisation of Indian Muslims, another Pulwama like attack, and even nuclear war in the region. ‘Who ever talks of war is irresponsible,’ the envoy said at an interaction with members of the Indian Association of Foreign Affairs Correspondents.
Ambassador Lindner also said that Germany would like to see the restrictions on Kashmir ‘lifted’ as soon as possible but this was something that should be done in coordination with the security forces, but there should be no ‘violation of human rights’. Kashmir has been under a communications’ lockdown since August 5th, when the union government rescinded its special status and bifurcated the state into two union territories – Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. Restrictions have been incrementally lifted since but a communications lockdown remains in place and normal life has yet to return to large swathes of the valley.
The envoy who had visited Kashmir just three months ago, said it was a beautiful place and people whom he spoke to said ‘what we need are jobs’. Thus, the government’s desire for development, peace, and absence of terrorism there was understandable.
These were the first comments made on Kashmir by the German envoy.
On Afghanistan and the recent elections held there Mr. Lindner said that though participation was low the fact that Afghanistan had elections ‘was good’. Though it was ‘challenging endeavour’ to talk with Taliban Ambassador Lindner said it was something that ‘had to be done’. Talks had to be held with everyone including the ‘government in Kabul’, he reiterated. Recalling that the first peace conference on Afghanistan after 9/11 was held in Bonn, Germany, he said Germany has remained engaged with Afghanistan. He said the government had to be supported and peace talks recalibrated once a new government took charge in the war torn country.
Describing the situation in the Gulf as ‘a tinderbox’ the envoy said that Germany had helped hammer out the Iran deal of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). He said the US pulling out of the JCPOA was ‘premature’ and that Germany was still working on it, because the alternative would be ‘no JCPOA’ and an Iran free to work on enriching uranium and obtaining nuclear weapons.
