WASHINGTON: The United States has protested to India about what the Americans call Mrs Indira Gandhi’s volte face on Viet-Nam peace talks.

Yesterday [July 21], the Secretary of State, Mr Dean Rusk, summoned Indian Charge d’Affaires here to point out US dissatisfaction over Mrs Gandhi’s post-Moscow stand that there should be unconditional stoppage of US bombing of North Viet-Nam.

Earlier, India had urged such a stoppage as part of the reconvening of the Geneva conference.

The Americans are also said to be unhappy, and Mr Rusk apparently made this clear too, over one aspect of the joint Indo-Russian communiqué which denounced “aggressive actions of Imperialist and other reactionary forces”. The United States thinks it is directed against the Americans.

Terming the shift in Indian stand on Viet-Nam as a “turnabout in New Delhi”, ‘Washington Post” commented in an editorial today [July 22] that “it would have been difficult for Indira Gandhi to advertise post-Nehru India’s secondary status in world affairs more forcefully than by her reversal on Viet-Nam, following her Moscow visit.”

The Washington paper thought that “the Indian leader has emerged from her first major foray on the world stage looking at best somewhat hapless and at worst as a politician rather too ready to be manhandled by determined foreign leaders.”

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2016