NEW DELHI, June 30: The ruling Congress party on Thursday attacked comments made by former US president Richard Nixon describing ex-Indian premier Indira Gandhi as an ‘old witch’ and said his aide Henry Kissinger referring to Indians as ‘bastards’ was distasteful.

The angry reaction came after the United States released transcripts of a private conversation between Mr Nixon and Mr Kissinger which was held days before the 1971 Pakistan-India war.

“This kind of language does not behove any head of state,” Congress party spokesman Anand Sharma said in New Delhi.

“Also, distasteful expressions used against the popularly-elected prime minister of another country and as well damning the entire Indian people is surely distasteful and unacceptable in any civilized debate,” he said.

Mr Sharma, however, said comments made 34 years ago had little relevance, especially at a juncture when relations between India and the US were improving.

“It was said 34 years ago and has no current relevance and there is no doubt the present American leadership too will reject it.

“We are living in a new era and relations between the two countries have undergone a qualitative change since. It is meaningless today,” he said.

The Oval Office transcripts detail a meeting between Mr Nixon and Mr Kissinger in the White House in Nov 1971, shortly after a meeting with then prime minister Indira Gandhi, who had gone to Washington to discuss the growing possibility of war with Pakistan.

“We really slobbered over the old witch,” Mr Nixon told Mr Kissinger, who was then the national security adviser, of his meeting with strong-willed Indira Gandhi the previous day. Indians are ‘a slippery, treacherous people’, the president said.

Mr Kissinger told Mr Nixon: “The Indians are bastards anyway. They are starting a war there.”

“They are the most aggressive goddamn people around there,” he was quoted as saying in the build-up to the 1971 war.

The release of the transcripts and other newly declassified material coincided with the visit to the US by Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and the signing of a landmark military accord along with US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The US froze all military ties and imposed sanctions on India after it conducted nuclear tests in 1998.

The 10-year defence pact inked on Tuesday paved the way for joint weapons production, cooperation on missile defence and the possible lifting of US export controls for sensitive military technologies.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to visit the US at the invitation of President George Bush from July 18 to 20. —AFP