In a long interview published by both Saudi Gazette and its sister publication Okaz on July 24, Indian Ambassador to the Kingdom Talmiz Ahmad had committed a number of diplomatic gaffes one will find it hard to justify.

The ambassador claimed that Saudi Arabia shares Indian concerns about terrorism, being a victim of terrorism itself. He also claimed that the terrorism targeting both countries originated from the same source. I don’t know why the ambassador missed the point that such a comparison, while useful to India, would be an insult to the Kingdom and a travesty of facts. For one thing, Saudi Arabia does not occupy another country or oppress its people like what India has been doing in Kashmir for more than half a century. Neither has the Kingdom deployed 800,000 security forces with destructive weapons to indulge in mass killings, brutal torture and rapes as India is doing to about 12 million people of Kashmir.

Saudi Arabia, by the grace of God, abides by all international resolutions. On the other hand, India has been refusing for the past 50 years to implement the five UN Security Council resolutions that give Kashmiris the right to self-determination through a plebiscite conducted under international supervision.

The kind of twisted logic presented by the Indian ambassador would have been appropriate if he had been in Tel Aviv and accredited to the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, because it echoes the Zionistic reasoning.

The Zionist government does not consider that its occupation of Palestine and oppression of more than 10 million Palestinians is the reason for the unrest in occupied territories and the heroic Palestinian resistance — a right a people under occupation is entitled to.

In the same way, India believes that its accusing Pakistan of supporting terrorism and its labeling Kashmiris terrorists would make the world forget all about the Indian occupation of Kashmir and its brutal oppression of the Kashmir people — the problem underlying all the dangers that threaten the people of the subcontinent.

6 August 2002