External Affairs Minister S M Krishna had an appointment with senior journalists from East European countries on Tuesday, which included Poland, Croatia and Slovenia.
While welcoming journalists in his South Block office, Krishna said, "I hope that you will not get cultural shock. Hope it is not so devastating."
In fact, journalists were undergoing the shock. Marko Biocina from Croatia and Andrej Miholic from Slovenia were looking overwhelmed to see the sheer size of India. In fact, the visiting journalists didn't find New Delhi "too cold".
Milholic said while smiling, "It's like spring for us because we are coming from areas where temperature goes down to minus ten and more. This is pleasant."
They had a pleasant visit to Agra, too. One of the visiting journalists said, "There is so much hope here in people. Europe is so pessimistic. People here are saying 'we will do this, we will improve that. We will get this, we will build this.' But, in Europe we are not building. Here in India everything is on the move. Nothing is moving in Europe."
Although 'too much population in India' was the oft-repeated remark of the journalists.
One of the journalists said, "You will need to mix ten European countries to make one Indian city. Sheer size of India makes it so different."
Krishna told the journalists that he is a "tennis buff' and have frequently visited Paris and Wimbledon to enjoy tennis matches. He said that East European countries and India have "timeless ties" and India aims to increase the trade to reach $ 100 billion mark in the coming years.
The visiting journalists had mainly three queries before Krishna. Why is India aspiring for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council? They also wanted to know about Pakistan and they enquired about what kind of co-operation is possible between India and East European countries.
Krishna also shared information about his three-day visit to Afghanistan where he met President Hamid Karzai and his counterpart Dr Zalmay Rasool.
He strongly defended the elections in Afghanistan and also defended Karzai's re-election. He said that in the war-torn country when people go to polling booths they should be respected.
He said that every right thinking person must respect the Afghan peace process. He said, "I also met (Burhanuddin) Rabbani (of the Afghan High Council for Peace) who is trying to broker peace (with the Taliban). I told him that India supports his efforts and everything should be done to strengthen the efforts."
While replying a question on the Pakistan-India relation, Krishna said, "We are looking forward to Pakistan to be more sensitive towards our basic core concern. The core concern is terrorism and terrorism has to be tackled effectively." He added, "We want a stable, prosperous and friendly Pakistan as our neighbour".
He emphasised that, "Terrorism cannot be shoved under the carpet, we have to tackle it". Krishna also assured that if Pakistan fulfils its assurances to disband the infrastructure of terror on its soil, India is willing to go "more than halfway" to hold peace talks.
When asked about India's aspiration for a permanent membership of UNSC, Krishna put forward "one billion" people to strengthen its case.
He asked visiting journalists, "Does that (nation of one billion people) matter?"
He also advocated the case of Africa. He said, "The entire continent is totally left out. UN should be a representative body. UNSC should reflect that."
