New Delhi [India], May 23 : Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, leading one of the all-party delegations for India's global outreach initiative, on Friday emphasised that the objective of the visit is to firmly and constructively present India's perspective on the decades-long terrorism it has faced, particularly from across the border since 1989.
Tharoor, along with other MPs from Group 5, will visit the United States, Guyana, Panama, Brazil, and Colombia. The delegation was earlier briefed by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri regarding the agenda of the global outreach being done to present India's position against terrorism. Tharoor mentioned that the aim of the delegations would be to sensitise opinion towards India.
"We are meeting government officials, legislators, think tanks, and media and have public interaction. We are really going to try and talk to everybody. The whole idea is that we would like to sensitise public opinion, parliamentary opinion, and legislative opinion in each of these countries. So we will meet whoever wants to meet us," Tharoor told reporters at the Parliament premises.
Addressing a question on US President Donald Trump's statements only focusing on Kashmir, Tharoor said that it is a "major point" which they will raise with US representatives while making sure to communicate clearly about the terrorism India has faced for decades.
"This is obviously a major point we will be raising. Our idea is to communicate very clearly to all our external interlocutors, we are going to five countries in this delegation...throughout our message is to the horrendous terrorism that India has been subjected to since atleast 1989 across the border. I think it becomes very important for that message to find the kind of understanding that we believe in some statements may not always be apparent," he said.
He further expressed confidence in India's defence capabilities and responding to a terror attack in the future, adding, "I think we are there to get our point of view across and we will do so in a constructive way; we are not there to argue with anybody, we are there to explain what exactly has happened in our country and what we have had to do and why we have found a certain spirit of resolution and how to deal with these terror attack in the future."
Tharoor mentioned that during the briefing with the Foreign Secretary, there was no request to change any plans for presenting India's outreach against terror.
"You know what the government's message has been. During any crisis, there is always contact with those countries. We have taken the same line everywhere, there has been no formal process request or variation, either requested or conducted. There is going to be no particular change or variation"
"We are always a country that talks in a very constructive way to those who are involved in a crisis. Our Foreign Minister, if I remember correctly he put a post everytime he had a meeting with another foreign minister, there are many ministers around the world calling him, expressing concern, asking whats going on. I believe we gave a consistent message to all of them"
The all-party delegations will project India's national consensus and resolute approach to combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. They will convey to the world the country's strong message of zero tolerance for terrorism.
The delegation led by Tharoor also has BJP's Shashank Mani Tripathi, Bhubaneswar Kalita, and Tejasvi Surya, along with LJP (Ram Vilas)'s Shambhavi Choudhary, TDP's GM Harish Balayogi, Shiv Sena's Milind Deora, JMM's Sarfaraz Ahmad, along with former Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu.