Journalism of Courage
First time invitations to Israel and Taiwan to attend Indias most prestigious international petroleum conference has landed the government in a spot after the external affairs ministry protested that the petroleum ministrys move could turn the event into a diplomatic disaster.
The episode is being seen as the outcome of an absence of coordination between the two ministries similar to the row involving Bhutan earlier this year when Indian Oil cut fuel subsidy to the Himalayan nation largely due to gaps in communication.
In this case,the petroleum ministry and ONGC organising Petrotech 2014,a biennial event,decided to send official invitations to the two countries without getting the MEA to look at it from a diplomatic angle.
While the invitations may have made commercial sense,the MEA has conveyed to the petroleum ministry that to invite Israel was like waving the red flag to all oil-rich Arab-Islamic countries which attend the conference in large numbers by way of official as well as business delegations. The MEAs point,sources said,was that this could even trigger diplomatic protests.
As for Taiwan,sources said,South Block has reminded the petroleum ministry that India does not enjoy full diplomatic relations with that country and to extend official government invitations without proper diplomatic consideration was out of place and not in keeping with norms.
More importantly,a move like this would most likely trigger a protest from China and derail the conference from its principal objective.
The conference,set for January 12-15,is a showcase event for the petroleum ministry. This time,however,much of the organisation of the event was left to ONGC that went ahead and sent these invitations. The invitations were addressed to oil ministers,requesting them to send an official as well as business delegation to the event.
There is usually not much approval needed as the list of countries remains the same,but this time,Israel and Taiwan were added. The MEA,that is mostly kept in the loop,was taken aback when it learnt that these two countries had been included in the list without clearance.
With South Block taking up the matter forcefully,sources said efforts were underway to limit the diplomatic damage with these two countries.
