New Delhi:
"Obnoxious" was how the Congress party described the comments of the Pakistani Foreign Minister that tried to equate India's Home Secretary with Hafiz Saeed, the Pakistani who masterminded the worst-ever terror attack India has seen.
The Congress also denied that the root cause of the current controversy- the Home Secretary's remarks on the ISI's role in 26/11 - made in Delhi on the eve of the Indo-Palk talks were ill-timed.
Home Secretary GK Pillai said earlier this week to the Indian Express that David Headley's interrogation has revealed "ISI had a much more significant role to play in Mumbai attacks... ISI was literally controlling and coordinating the attacks from the beginning till the end." Headley, who has admitted to working for the Lashkar-e-Taiba and helping the terrorist group to plan and execute 26/11 - was arrested in America last year, and was questioned recently by Indian officials.
On Thursday, the Foreign Ministers of Pakistan and India met for six hours and then held a press briefing. There, Qureshi that Pillai's remarks were uncalled for and that India's Foreign Minister, SM Krishna, had agreed with him about this. At the time, Krishna did not object to Qureshi's claim. On Friday, upon his return to India, Krishna defended Pillai, stating that the information on the ISI had already been given to Pakistan by Home Minister P Chidambaram when he visited Islamabad last month.
The Congress also slammed Qureshi for another press conference he held in Islamabad today where he upped the rhetoric, claiming that India was not "fully prepared" for its dialogue with Pakistan, and that the constant phone calls that Krishna took from Delhi during the talks indicated he did not have the mandate to really handle the dialogue. Krishna has rejected those claims, pointing out that even if he had kept in touch with Delhi, it would not have been an unusual gesture. " "It's common in diplomatic parlay," he said, "to keep the government leadership briefed."
The Congress spokesperson, Jayanthi Natarajan, said Qureshi's new "press conference- we condemn it as objectionable - he was catering to his domestic constituency." She also added that Qureshi was aggressive today because " he came under great deal of attack within Pakistan for accepting some of India's arguments" on terror during the bilateral talks.
"I would not look for a certificate by the Pakistan Foreign Minister," said Natarajan. "Our External Affairs Minister fulfilled the mandate and conducted himself with utmost dignity and restraint while on foreign soil," Natarajan told reporters here.