‘Sushma Swaraj was not ‘important’, but Jaishankar…’ – sensation from Pompeo’s book, said a big thing on Indo-US relations

Washington. Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that he never saw his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj as a ‘significant political figure’ but struck up a good friendship with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in their first meeting. In his new book ‘Never Give An Inch: Fighting For America I Love’, Pompeo has described Sushma Swaraj in derisive terms and has also used derisive words like goofy etc. in common language about her. This book has come in the market on Tuesday.

Swaraj was the External Affairs Minister of India from May 2014 to May 2019 in the first term of Narendra Modi’s government. He passed away in August 2019. Pompeo (59) wrote in his book, ‘On the Indian side, my original counterpart was not a key figure in the Indian foreign policy team. Instead, I worked more closely with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, a close and confidant of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A confidante of then US President Donald Trump, Pompeo was CIA director in his administration from 2017 to 2018 and then secretary of state from 2018 to 2021. He said, “My other Indian counterpart was Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. In May 2019, we welcomed ‘J’ as the new External Affairs Minister of India. I couldn’t have asked for a better counterpart. I like this person. English is one of the seven languages ​​he speaks and he is better than me.”

Pompeo told Jaishankar professional
Pompeo is exploring the possibility of contesting the 2024 presidential election. Pompeo described Jaishankar as ‘professional, logical and a great defender of his boss and his country’. He said, ‘We became friends immediately. In our first meeting I was complaining in very diplomatic language that his predecessor was not particularly helpful.’

What did External Affairs Minister Jaishankar say about Sushma Swaraj
Commenting on Pompeo’s claims, Jaishankar told ‘PTI-Bhasha’, ‘I have seen a passage in Minister Pompeo’s book referring to Mrs. Sushma Swaraj ji. I always respected him a lot and had very close and cordial relations with him. I condemn the derogatory language used for him. Pompeo has also said in his book that America’s neglect of India was a decades-old failure on both sides.

What did Pompeo say on Indo-US relations
“We are natural allies because we share a history of democracy, a common language and a relationship between people and technology,” he said. India is also a market with high demand for American intellectual property and products. Because of these factors as well as its strategic location in South Asia, I made India the base of my diplomacy to counter Chinese aggression.

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Tags: Mike Pompeo, S Jaishankar, Sushma Swaraj