The Bharatiya Janata Party demanded that the India-Pakistan talks be called off immediately, noting that Pakistan Foreign Minister Mehmood Qureshi had yet to learn the basic norms of diplomatic behaviour.
Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj, who was away in Madhya Pradesh, said the government could not remain a mute witness to all the insults heaped on External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna.
Representatives of the two countries might or might not agree with each other, but diplomatic norms should be observed. This was not done by the Foreign Minister of the host country.
“The time has come for India to call off the dialogue,” she said. There was no need for India to keep putting up with insults heaped upon its representatives.
At the party headquarters here, spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said Mr. Qureshi seemed to have lost his cool because Home Secretary G.K. Pillai mentioned about the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan in a comment he had made. This showed the ISI was the “real boss” in Pakistan, he said.
The BJP had serious reservations about the functioning of the External Affairs Ministry under Mr. Krishna, but he stood for India when he travelled abroad, and any insult to him was an insult to India which could not be tolerated, Mr. Prasad said.
