New Delhi: bjp Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday condemned the government’s silence over the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a US-Israeli attack, as the party recalled the late Iranian’s support for separatist forces in Kashmir and said diplomacy must not be reduced to appeasement or show politics.Bharatiya Janata Party foreign minister Vijay Chhotaiwal cited several of Khamenei’s comments critical of India and said Sonia needed to “refresh” her memory. Chotaiwal said the Iranian leader in a 2017 statement called on the “Muslim world to openly support the people of Yemen, Bahrain and Kashmir and condemn the oppressors and tyrants who attack them.” “India has not remained silent. It has consistently called for restraint, respect for sovereignty and de-escalation of tensions. With millions of citizens living and working in the Gulf and vital economic and energy linkages, reckless comments are neither practical nor responsible,” he said. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Amit Malviya said Sonia’s article describing India’s response to the crisis as “silent” was misleading and revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of responsible diplomacy. He added that when Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was killed in 2011, the UPA government led by the Congress Party neither expressed condolences nor offered any condemnation. “Was the UPA wrong in 2011 or is the Modi government right today? One cannot have two foreign policies: one in opposition and the other in power,” he said.
