New Delhi
1 October 2005
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday
sought to explain India's vote against Iran in the IAEA Board of Governors
by taking refuge in the Bhagawad Gita, in which Lord Krishna advises
Arjuna on the battlefield to do his duty.
"Gita says one must do one's duty unmindful of the consequences," Dr
Singh told reporters at Rashtrapati Bhawan after President APJ Abdul
Kalam presented the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for Excellence in
Public Administration, Academics and Management to a former
bureaucrat, Mr CP Srivastava.
"What we have done is not against Iran. Give diplomacy time to find a via
media which is mutually acceptable," he asserted and sought to allay
apprehensions that India's decision to support the EU-3 resolution on
Iran's controversial nuclear programme in the IAEA meeting was against
Tehran's interests.
He said diplomacy should be given some time to find a mutually-
acceptable via media to the matter that has engaged the attention of
governments across the world since the September 24 IAEA meeting in
which 22 countries including India voted for the resolution; 12 countries
abstained and one voted against it.
He also played down the strong criticism by CPI(M) holding him "directly
responsible" for India's vote in the IAEA against Iran's controversial
nuclear programme saying it did not surprise him. "Nothing surprises
me," he said when asked by reporters whether the article by CPI(M)
General Secretary Prakash Karat in "People's Democracy" had caught
him unawares.
Accusing the UPA Government of "appeasing" the United States, Mr Karat
in a strongly-worded article in his party organ asserted that the Left
cannot countenance this "new direction" of the foreign policy.
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