India on Tuesday reacted sharply to US Secretary of State Colin Powell's remarks that he hopes to take up the Indo-Pak issue after Iraq saying the role of outsiders was 'limited' to the central issue of cross-border terrorism.
In an interview to New York Times, Powell said, “The Indo-Pakistan and the whole sub-continent problem was part of the broader agenda" that the US plans to go back to after Iraq.
Powell had said the Indo-Pak issue would be taken up to ensure that there is no threat of a nuclear war between the two sub-continental rivals.
"It is our war," External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha told reporters in Delhi. "I don't know what was the occasion for him to say this but clearly time and tide wait for no one."
Sinha's remarks came after he released a book entitled 'Afghanistan in Transition' at a function in Delhi organised by the Indian Council of World Affairs.
"No other issue is as central in Jammu and Kashmir as cross-border terrorism," the minister emphasised adding, "To the extent to which any other country would pressure Pakistan as part of the global war on terrorism, it is fine, but it is our war."
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