Jaswant’s diplomacy is no battle for turf

Rohit Bansal

New Delhi, Aug 28: RECOGNISING that economic diplomacy initiatives of foreign minister Jaswant Singh over the last few weeks are being labelled as “turf battles” by specialist ministries, minister of state for external affairs (MEA) Omar Abdullah has said that “the MEA’s intention is merely to provide supportive input.”

The ministry’s three advisory groups — on world trade and related issues, technical cooperation, and environment and energy security — with some 20 top-ranking “non-MEA” experts each, met over day-long sessions on August 21, 24 and 28. Each group has identified strategic imperatives. MEA’s economic relations department is now combing for the most important ones. Mr Abdullah on Wednesday said that he would begin inter-ministerial consultations as soon as MEA’s economic relations department has put together the three consultative reports and inputs being received from Indian envoys across the world, post Mr Singh’s five-page exhortation to them on economic diplomacy.

Mr Singh sent Indian missions on an overdrive after this letter on June 28, when he asked them to set for themselves specific targets on some 22 economic parameters. He expects this to become part of performance appraisal.

“Economic diplomacy is not some turf war that we have launched,” Mr Abdullah told The Financial Express clearly hoping to smother murmurs about his senior minister’s intention. “It is the way the world is conducting its diplomacy today. And we have to do just that. Our missions have critical inputs. Our advisory groups are value adds. All these need to be shared among the relevant administrative ministries.”

Mr Abdullah gave examples “of how an alignment of responses (among various ministries of the government) is critical if we were to create a project-based, as also a strategic national response, to various fast-arising opportunities in the world.” Announcing his direct involvement in this delicate excercise once the backroom crunching is done, Mr Abdullah said, “I am looking forward to personally chairing a process, where our inputs are shared with the relevant ministries”.