New Delhi, June 18 2025 (ANI): New Delhi [India], June 18 (ANI): Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on June 18 lashed out at the Congress party for questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi's engagement with former US President Donald Trump, alleging that the party is constantly seeking ways to undermine India's image.
00:00Through all this I get the feeling, so Chitraji, that they're always looking for some way in which they can show India down.
00:07As the Prime Minister leaves Calgary and he's on his way for the third leg of his three-nation trip to Croatia,
00:18I think this is an absolutely opportune moment for us to make an overall assessment of what has been achieved.
00:24And as a student of diplomacy for 39 years as a Foreign Service officer, six years as an international think tanker,
00:37and now eight years as a minister, I can tell you it's been a highly successful visit.
00:42Let me point to some of the more evident outcomes.
00:48I'll be happy thereafter to go into detail also.
00:52First of all, I think the attendance of the Prime Minister in the G7 summit,
00:59which he has been continuously doing, I think since 2018 or so,
01:04is in and of itself a very important thing,
01:11because that provides an opportunity to the Honorable Prime Minister
01:15to meet the heads of state and government of these important countries
01:20and to interact not only on pressing multilateral issues,
01:26but also to focus on relationships which are of a bilateral nature.
01:31And since this G7 summit was being hosted by Canada in Calgary,
01:40you will recall there was a fair amount of, not fair amount,
01:45a lot of fake narrative which was flowing out of the live-producing factory
01:51which is presently anchored in the Indian National Congress.
01:56You know, things about not being invited, this has not happened, that has not happened.
02:03Look, the facts of the matter are,
02:05the Prime Minister has been an invitee to G7 summits now for several years now.
02:10And he not only participates, but he provides sage counsel,
02:15he is always promoting the processes of diplomacy and peace,
02:19no matter where the attention points globally are.
02:23But with Canada, I think there is a special significance.
02:28You don't need much knowledge of diplomacy to know what was happening between India and Canada.
02:36The relationship had got almost completely derailed,
02:39thanks to certain factors.
02:42I won't go into that as yet.
02:44But the decision that the two sides, after a very fruitful discussion
02:49that the Prime Minister had with his Canadian counterpart,
02:54the newly elected Prime Minister, to restore diplomatic relations,
02:58I am using words carefully, the diplomatic relations were never ruptured.
03:02But, you know, when a relationship is stalling or it's spiraling downwards,
03:07not to have resident high commissioners in each other's capital
03:11always exacerbates the problem.
03:13Now, the decision that there will be designated new envoys to be stationed in Canada and India,
03:21I think is a very positive development.
03:23It means that the relationship will now be handled in a more focused manner.
03:30There is no point in situations like this going into a blame game,
03:33who is to blame for what.
03:35You know, it takes two to tango.
03:36When something goes wrong, then it's, I think, statesman-like,
03:40which is, I think, what the Prime Minister has done.
03:42He has, you know, had a frank discussion on points of difference.
03:47And now we will be able to, I think, get this relationship up and about.
03:54It's an important relationship.
03:56I don't remember figures offhand, but I think the Indian origin community there should be upwards of 1 million people.
04:03Our trade bilateral in goods alone should be about 8 or 9 billion dollars.
04:09And, apart from that, you know, Canada and India have had a traditional relationship which is based on certain shared values.
04:17Forget about what happened here and, you know, I used a rather harsh term the other day when I was describing some of those protesters
04:25who draw not inspiration but even financial circle from one of our Western neighbors.
04:32So, that is all right.
04:34And I used a harsh term.
04:35I called them Kirai Katattu.
04:36And I'm glad that, you know, apart from that show of protests, etc.,
04:41they were either exhausted or didn't feel like showing up.
04:46So, I'm happy about it.
04:47But the relationship, because if you have a million people of Indian origin staying there,
04:53they will require consular services.
04:54They will require constant, you know, other forms of visa, passports, all kinds of services.
05:03And it's an important trade relationship.
05:06So, I'm very happy that this decision has been taken to reposition our high commissioners in each other country.
05:12The decision on other aspects also, what I see from the readout I get from the Foreign Secretary's briefing
05:20and from other things, is very encouraging.
05:23Canada and India have many avenues and a lot of potential that needs to be discovered,
05:33including, I think, in my field, which I'm into, which is energy also.
05:37And I think there has been some work, but I think more can be done on the exchange of goods and services and other aspects.
05:47But apart from that, I think the visit to Canada also gave him an opportunity to have very meaningful interactions with the other G7 leaders.
05:58I saw some readouts of his meetings with the President of Mexico, you know, the German Chancellor, the President of the Republic of Korea and so on.
06:09A meeting was scheduled with President Trump, which could not take place in physical format because President Trump had to leave Calgary to return to DC because of some ongoing issues.
06:30On that, I don't want to comment, but the very fact, the very fact that that was immediately followed up by a 35 minute telephone call.
06:40And I think we've been given an excellent readout of the meeting.
06:45Several objectives were achieved.
06:48I think the fact that President Trump started by offering condolences to the Honorable Prime Minister for the deaths in Palgam.
06:59Prime Minister briefed President Trump on the ongoing Operation Sindhu.
07:05He provided a very clear perspective that when the Palgam attack took place, I think it was on 22nd April, India had made it abundantly clear that this attack will not go unpunished.
07:21And this is no longer possible to justify this as proxy this time.
07:27There is our Western neighbor has been using terror as an instrument of state policy.
07:31And a clear decision was taken.
07:34Therefore, when the events unfolded, yes, there were some exchanges.
07:41Those exchanges dealt with a message which had come through the U.S. Vice President.
07:48The U.S. Vice President had talked about the Pakistanis likely to use force, to which they got a reply from the Honorable Prime Minister that if that were to be the case,
07:58our response would be even more robust.
07:59We have never accepted, and this has been a consistent position of India, third-party mediation.
08:06And there was no discussion on any trade or any other aspect during the exchanges with the U.S.
08:12The request for a ceasefire came from the Pakistani side.
08:16It came from their Director General of Military Operation, and it was responded to.
08:20And I think after having demonstrated to the world that in those 22 minutes, nine terror outfits, all right, which have security links also were hit, and not in a notional or a pro forma way.
08:34But, you know, hundreds of kilometers inside, Burit K, Bhopalpur, and also, I must remind you, the Allied security infrastructure.
08:44But again, the Prime Minister has been making it clear.
08:47He provided the G7 with a very clear enunciational position.
08:51The idea was not to attack Pakistan.
08:54The idea was to attack the terror establishment in a non-escalatory manner,
08:58and those who were perpetrating that terror, to leave them in no doubt that any attack on India, any terror attack,
09:07will henceforth be considered an act of war, and that Operation Sindhu is an ongoing process.
09:14I was just shown a message by which a quote from the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. PM Carney, who said,
09:27Honored to work with India on artificial intelligence, energy, and the anti-terror fight.
09:33So, you know, some of my friends in the, I should now start calling them lie-producing factory, LPF instead of INC, constantly,
09:47I mean, they turn to, oh, there is no invitation, and then when a productive 35-minute exchange takes place,
09:55they resort to, I don't know, frankly, whether this is ineptitude and incompetence or this is pure lies.
10:02But either case, it's a lie.
10:06Then they take resort to an earlier conversation, which took place in January, and say, well, this is not the error readout.
10:12But should you or should you not accept a detailed readout by your own Foreign Secretary, and point by point.
10:24So, all I can do is, I don't want to dignify the Congress Party's ongoing, you know, hallucinatory,
10:32I would call it hallucinatory, fake narratives that they go and put on.
10:39But through all this, I get the feeling, so Chitraji, that they are always looking for some way in which they can show India down.
10:46If India achieves a spectacular military success in those 22 minutes, and the evidence of the devastation cause is in the public domain,
10:55through commercially available satellite imagery, the Congress Party and its, you know, lie-peddling geniuses will go into some other direction,
11:06looking for some little thing to hang on there.
11:09In the process, they not only enhance and exacerbate their own irrelevance,
11:13but show them up in front of their own party also for the kind of people that they are.
