New Delhi, Oct 21: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on Wednesday, dismissed United Nations “experts” as an “oxymoron” and declined to comment on demonstrations by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and opposition parties, calling the protests an Indian domestic political matter.
Speaking to the press in Mumbai on the second day pf his three-day visit to India, Rubio was asked about remarks by UN experts on the CJP protests and the subsequent response by law enforcement agencies.
“Oh, UN experts, my favourite. The UN experts are the oxymoron,” he said, before making clear that Washington would not comment on India’s internal political affairs.
“It is a domestic political matter. I am not going to comment on it. This is a democracy, they have elections here. I am not going to opine on their domestic, political matters. We have protests every day in US,” Rubio said before leaving for Jamnagar in Gujarat.
His remarks came a day after India pushed back against criticism from more than 20 UN human rights experts over the police response to youth-led protests in Delhi and other parts of the country.
Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly’s Third Committee, which deals with humanitarian affairs, Barkha Tamrakar, a Deputy Secretary in the External Affairs Ministry’s UN Economic Social Division, accused some international actors of selectively invoking human rights concerns to exert political pressure on countries.
While affirming India’s engagement with international human rights organisations, Tamrakar said New Delhi opposed the use of human rights as a political tool to target countries through unverified allegations.
“‘Human rights’ must not to be used as an instrument of political pressure or selective country targeting,” she said.
India had also rejected as “hearsay” on October 17 a report by a UN human rights expert that took note of the “satirical political movement” created by the country’s youth. New Delhi had urged the expert to verify claims before using them to vilify issues.
Rubio’s visit is aimed at advancing India-US ties across energy, trade and investment, defence and critical technologies, as well as exchanging views on the West Asia crisis.
The US Secretary of State arrived in Mumbai on Tuesday, where External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar hosted him for wide-ranging talks on bilateral cooperation.
On Wednesday morning, Rubio also met Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani and Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran.
He then headed to Jamnagar to visit Reliance Industries’ oil-refining complex, described as the world’s largest single-site refinery, along with Vantara and giga factories being developed by the conglomerate.
Neither side released details of the meetings.
With inputs from agencies