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- Jun 15, 2011
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New York, Aug. 11: India has been thrust into the centre of efforts to prevent a fourth western-led war in the Muslim world, this time for a regime change in Damascus.
A three-member IBSA delegation of India, Brazil and South Africa, with Dilip Sinha, South Block’s additional secretary for international organisations, as a member, yesterday appeared to have pulled Damascus from the brink after it secured a personal commitment from Syrian President Bashar al Assad of multi-party elections and a new constitution for his country by March 2012.
Simultaneously, the UN Security Council met in private here yesterday under the presidency of India’s permanent representative Hardeep Singh Puri and heard a briefing on behalf of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon by his top political officer on Syria, Oscar Fernandez-Taranco.
Britain’s acting UN ambassador Philip Parham, flanked by the envoys of France, Germany and Portugal described the briefing as “chilling” and “depressing”.
The western countries are itching to start another war in West Asia, not so much because their hearts are bleeding for the Syrian people but because their real objective is to break the Assad government’s nexus with Lebanon and the Hizbollah militia which is a thorn in Israel’s side.
They also hope to isolate Iran further in the region if Tehran’s ally Assad is replaced by a western-leaning leader in Damascus.
India is determined that during its presidency of the Security Council, it will not allow itself to be used as cannon fodder for a repetition of the invasion of Iraq or the ongoing attack on Libya.
Sinha’s meetings yesterday with Assad and his foreign minister Walid al Moualem in Damascus were a throwback to the times when Indian envoys straddled the region offering diplomatic alternatives to western policies.
Membership of the UN Security Council has given New Delhi an opportunity to revisit its past and revive such diplomacy at a time when emerging powers are seeking to put their stamp on a world in deep crisis.
New Delhi is arm in arm in this effort with Brazil and South Africa, its partners in the IBSA group which are also aspirants for permanent seats in the Security Council.
For western countries, which had got used to having their way in global fora since the end of the Cold War, the new assertiveness on the part of any group other than their own is irritating.
For the western media, it is heresy after two decades of not being challenged in any significant way.
Puri rubbed it in two days ago when he told reporters after a meeting of the Security Council that it was the Indian presidency which accelerated a presidential statement by the Council on Syria last week.
The Council was stuck in a stalemate on Syria for two and a half months when Puri became president. Last week’s presidential statement paved the way for yesterday’s briefing.
Next week, Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner of human rights, and Valerie Amos, the UN’s humanitarian co-ordinator, will similarly brief the Council.
The IBSA strategy is to have incremental movement on the Council’s floor and engage Damascus at the same time. Last week, Syria’s vice-foreign minister Faisal Mekdad visited all three IBSA countries.
His tour paved the way for yesterday’s meetings between Syria’s President and Sinha, Paulo Cordeiro de Andrade Pinto, the Brazil external relations ministry’s under-secretary general for middle eastern affairs and Ebrahim Ebrahim, South Africa’s deputy minister of international relations and cooperation.
India and other like-minded countries in the UN have learnt from the bitter experience on Libya that without all-round engagement with the various parties in similar crises, the western powers could push the Security Council under false pretences into rubber-stamping their missions for regime change.
The result could be an impasse as in Libya with no solutions on the horizon.
India leads Syria damage-control in UN
A three-member IBSA delegation of India, Brazil and South Africa, with Dilip Sinha, South Block’s additional secretary for international organisations, as a member, yesterday appeared to have pulled Damascus from the brink after it secured a personal commitment from Syrian President Bashar al Assad of multi-party elections and a new constitution for his country by March 2012.
Simultaneously, the UN Security Council met in private here yesterday under the presidency of India’s permanent representative Hardeep Singh Puri and heard a briefing on behalf of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon by his top political officer on Syria, Oscar Fernandez-Taranco.
Britain’s acting UN ambassador Philip Parham, flanked by the envoys of France, Germany and Portugal described the briefing as “chilling” and “depressing”.
The western countries are itching to start another war in West Asia, not so much because their hearts are bleeding for the Syrian people but because their real objective is to break the Assad government’s nexus with Lebanon and the Hizbollah militia which is a thorn in Israel’s side.
They also hope to isolate Iran further in the region if Tehran’s ally Assad is replaced by a western-leaning leader in Damascus.
India is determined that during its presidency of the Security Council, it will not allow itself to be used as cannon fodder for a repetition of the invasion of Iraq or the ongoing attack on Libya.
Sinha’s meetings yesterday with Assad and his foreign minister Walid al Moualem in Damascus were a throwback to the times when Indian envoys straddled the region offering diplomatic alternatives to western policies.
Membership of the UN Security Council has given New Delhi an opportunity to revisit its past and revive such diplomacy at a time when emerging powers are seeking to put their stamp on a world in deep crisis.
New Delhi is arm in arm in this effort with Brazil and South Africa, its partners in the IBSA group which are also aspirants for permanent seats in the Security Council.
For western countries, which had got used to having their way in global fora since the end of the Cold War, the new assertiveness on the part of any group other than their own is irritating.
For the western media, it is heresy after two decades of not being challenged in any significant way.
Puri rubbed it in two days ago when he told reporters after a meeting of the Security Council that it was the Indian presidency which accelerated a presidential statement by the Council on Syria last week.
The Council was stuck in a stalemate on Syria for two and a half months when Puri became president. Last week’s presidential statement paved the way for yesterday’s briefing.
Next week, Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner of human rights, and Valerie Amos, the UN’s humanitarian co-ordinator, will similarly brief the Council.
The IBSA strategy is to have incremental movement on the Council’s floor and engage Damascus at the same time. Last week, Syria’s vice-foreign minister Faisal Mekdad visited all three IBSA countries.
His tour paved the way for yesterday’s meetings between Syria’s President and Sinha, Paulo Cordeiro de Andrade Pinto, the Brazil external relations ministry’s under-secretary general for middle eastern affairs and Ebrahim Ebrahim, South Africa’s deputy minister of international relations and cooperation.
India and other like-minded countries in the UN have learnt from the bitter experience on Libya that without all-round engagement with the various parties in similar crises, the western powers could push the Security Council under false pretences into rubber-stamping their missions for regime change.
The result could be an impasse as in Libya with no solutions on the horizon.
India leads Syria damage-control in UN
