Cong to better ties with key nations

NEW DELHI, FEB 6: The Congress party is getting set to give notice to the government on the diplomatic front, with senior partymen readyi...

NEW DELHI, FEB 6: The Congress party is getting set to give notice to the government on the diplomatic front, with senior partymen readying to travel to key countries, including China.

The attempt to revamp fraying links with nations 8211; such as Bangladesh and South Africa 8211; with whom the Congress has over many decades shared ideology and provided moral and material support in their independence struggle, comes in tandem with the intent to raise the foreign policy debate in the forthcoming Parliament session, and take the government to task on its position on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Meanwhile, the Congress will also join an all-party delegation to Pakistan on February 12. Next week Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee will head a three-member delegation to Noakhali in Bangladesh. The first such party expedition, to South Africa, has already taken place. Led by N D Tiwari, the Congressmen are said to have been received quot;very warmlyquot; by the grand old man of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, who is nowhanding over his presidential baton in May to his successor Thabo Mbeki.

Congress leaders are attempting to play down these visits, saying the party is only maintaining its historical ties with a number of nations and that party-to-party exchanges are an integral part of its dynamic.

But the fact remains that since it lost power in 1996, and perhaps more pertinently since Sonia Gandhi became the leader of the parliamentary party, this is the first time that a sustained effort is being made to renew contacts with leaders abroad.

The China visit takes the political fight right into the BJP stronghold and is being planned for March. Head of the foreign affairs cell of the party, K Natwar Singh, who began life as a career diplomat in Beijing, said the government had messed up the relationship with Beijing by naming China, in the letter to President Clinton, as the reason for having gone nuclear in May.

quot;Since Rajiv Gandhi visited China in the late 1980s, things have gone downhill,quot; Singh said. He pointedout that some of his parliamentary colleagues, including Janata Party leader Subramaniam Swamy who had recently visited the country, had come back with tales of Chinese officials being very angry.

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At the same time, Singh added, the Congress intended to put the government on the mat by asking for a debate on the CTBT during the Budget session of Parliament which begins on February 22. He said the eight rounds of talks with the US had been done under so much secrecy that no one really knew what the government was committing to Washington.

quot;The Congress maintains its position that nuclear disarmament can only be carried out in a time-bound framework. We have not deviated from that. We left Mr US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott who met Mrs Gandhi last week with no doubt about the fact that a national consensus on the CTBT was still eluding us,quot; Singh said.

On China visit, it is believed that the Chinese embassy here is putting together the programme for the Congress.