NEW DELHI, 12 June 2004 — India’s communists, key supporters of the new coalition government, said yesterday there should be no question of sending troops to Iraq, in an angry response to a suggestion from the foreign minister that the issue could be reconsidered.

“The Indian foreign minister’s ambiguous remarks in Washington must be clarified,” the country’s largest left-wing party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said in a statement.

“The Manmohan Singh government must make it clear that there is no question of sending Indian troops to Iraq to bolster the American occupation.”

Foreign Minister Natwar Singh said on a visit to Washington on Thursday that his government would take a fresh look at the issue of sending troops to Iraq after the Security Council gave its unanimous blessing to a new interim government in Baghdad.

“There is a resolution of the last Parliament on this issue in which we had given our opinion that we are against sending troops to Iraq,” Natwar said after a meeting with US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

“Now the situation is changed. There is a resolution unanimously passed in the United Nations ... We’ll look at it very carefully. But I must emphasize that this matter will have to be placed before the government at the highest levels so it would be premature for me to say yea or nay.”

But India’s communists said the people of Iraq had had no say in the creation of the interim government and still suffered under a “brutal occupation”.

Prakash Karat, senior politburo member, CPM pointed out, “There have been no elections in Iraq. The Iraqis have had no say in the composition of the government. The situation is not going to change.”

Questioning Natwar Singh’s “proposal,” former foreign minister and BJP spokesman Yashwant Sinha said, “I don’t think it’s a well thought out statement by the foreign minister. It is very strange that he has made such a statement on US soil.” Sinha even raised the probability of Natwar having said the same under US “pressure.”

He said, “It is quite possible that he was influenced by his meeting with US officials. The Congress always accused the NDA of not having an independent foreign policy, now the people of India have to decide whether this is not bowing to American pressure.”

India’s previous Bharatiya Janata Party government, dumped last month in an election upset, had considered sending troops to Iraq, but eventually said it could not spare them because of the revolt in the disputed region of Kashmir.

India’s new government, under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has called for developing a steady relationship with Washington, but analysts say the communist parties may hold it back from getting too cosy with the United States.

Analysts say the Congress-led government, which crafted New Delhi’s policy of non-alignment during the Cold War, will seek close ties with Washington, but is less likely than its predecessor to accommodate US interests.

India under the BJP was among the first countries to line up behind the United States in its war on terror and was an enthusiastic supporter of President George W. Bush’s controversial nuclear missile defense program.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday after talks with Indian counterpart Natwar Singh that India’s new government wants to rapidly build up ties with the United States.

“The most important issue we touched on was the fact that the United States and India have a strong relationship right now and we intend to not only keep it strong but to build on that relationship, to move forward,” Powell told reporters after the talks.

Powell said Natwar told him he “planned to move very, very fast” and “I said I’ll do my best to keep up with him.”

It was the first visit to the United States by a minister in India’s new government, which in a policy statement Monday said it would try to foster “multipolarity” with the world while maintaining close ties with Washington.