Tharoor hails US troops surge

Welcoming United States’ continued commitment in Afghanistan, India has said it was pleased that pressure on Al Qaeda and Taliban will not be eased, reports HT Correspondent.

Welcoming United States’ continued commitment in Afghanistan, India has said it was pleased that pressure on Al Qaeda and Taliban will not be eased.

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India, Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for External Affairs said, is not complaining at all when asked if it was feeling left out on not being mentioned in Barack Obama’s speech. “What you are overlooking is that our Prime Minister has just been there. He received a pretty thorough exposition of the US views on the issue and President Obama called him up in Delhi yesterday to brief him further before his public speech in the US,” he added.

“American abbreviation for their policy is Af-Pak and I see India in neither of those two abbreviations. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the focus of this policy and focus of President Obama’s speech,” Tharoor said.

“We are dealing with a different part of the solution than is the US military. We are contributing through development, we are building roads, schools hospitals, clinics and this is the sort of assistance we can provide. Others are taking the security burden,” he said.