Condemning the plans of an American Pastor to burn the holy Koran, the
United States on Friday said such “disruptive and disrespectful”
attempts hurt efforts to counter “blood thirsty elements” and terror
attacks like those in New York and Mumbai.
U.S. Ambassador to India Timothy Roemer said President Barack Obama,
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and he himself condemn any
individual’s attempt to burn the holy Koran.
“This is highly disrespectful, divisive and disruptive.
It does not represent American values,” he told reporters after meeting Home Minister P. Chidambaram.
Mr. Roemer said the U.S. and India look at this issue through the same
prism and feel that “this is very disruptive, disrespectful and this
hurt the efforts to counter the evil and blood thirsty elements around
the world."
The Ambassador said as the world approaches 9/11, which is tomorrow, and
the 26/11, which will come after two months, the U.S. and India look
for ways to counter terrorist elements across the globe.
“We look for ways to have our two countries work together on the global
stage to counter these efforts to attack Mumbai or New York in the
future. Part of these efforts are military and a great deal through
development, through diplomacy, through religion being respected and
through working together at the inter-faith level,” he said.
Mr. Roemer said he conveyed to Mr. Chidambaram that the U.S. did not
subscribe to the actions of American Pastor Terry Jones, who had
announced to burn the holy Koran which had sparked outrage across the
world.
“I certainly expressed to Mr. Chidambaram that the U.S. is strongly
condemning any action to burn Koran. This is disruptive, divisive,
disrespectful and also this does not represent American values in shape
and form. The Minister and I talked about this,” he said.
Mr. Chidambaram on Thursday had condemned the plan by the pastor of a
small Florida church to burn copies of the holy Koran to mark the 9/11
attacks and called on U.S. authorities to take “strong action” to
prevent such an “outrage” being committed.
Impressed by Varanasi
Referring to his recent visit to Varanasi, the U.S. Ambassador said he
had seen in the 4,000 years old historic and beautiful city how people
of different religions worked together, talked to one another and
respect each other.
“I came out of Varanasi thinking that this is not just a city of temple,
this is a city of hope for the world. The lessons practice by people in
Varanasi were Sikhs, Jains, Hindus and Christians...all come together
not just to pray and dialogue, actually they work together at the local
level...on all problems and addressing the problems,” he said.
Mr. Roemer said the US was looking for such examples — the tolerance and
respect — which need to be practised in the U.S. as well as around the
world.
“That is happening in Varanasi...one of the oldest cities, holy cities,” he said.
The Ambassador said on the eve of ninth anniversary of terror attacks in
New York, where the twin towers were brought down by terrorists,
America was looking at ways to make sure that the country was working
together...that the country have a successful ventures of religions
coming together — both in prayers, practice and respect.
“The U.S. strongly encourages inter-faith dialogue, its respect for all religions,” he said.