Former Indian Foreign Secretary, and ex-Ambassador to Turkey, Egypt, France and Russia, Kanwal Sibal has slammed NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte for his warning to India, China and Brazil against doing business with Russia. Sibal called Rutte’s unprecedented remarks as “typical power infused chicanery”.

Rutte threatened “biting” secondary tariffs of 100 per cent on the buyers of Russian exports unless there is a peace deal in 50 days. Calling Rutte “Daddy’s son”, Sibal said the NATO chief was “out of his geopolitical depth” in warning India, China and Brazil.

“Are these three countries now part of NATO’s out of area remit? This man hasn’t thought about the implications of what he is saying,” said Rutte in a scathing post.

Sibal pointed out that Turkey imports huge amounts of Russian oil and questioned if the NATO Secretary General will press sanctions on a member. “Conveniently silent on this. The EU still imports 7 per cent of its oil from Russia. Will Hungary and Slovakia be sanctioned too? They are also NATO members. Rutte is silent on this too. Typical power infused chicanery,” he said.

The former envoy said Rutte needs to be snubbed by India officially, “which will also be a message to Trump”.

Rutte during the address said, “My encouragement to these three countries, particularly is, if you live now in Beijing, or in Delhi, or you are the president of Brazil, you might want to take a look into this, because this might hit you very hard. So please make the phone call to Vladimir Putin and tell him that he has to get serious about peace talks, because otherwise this will slam back on Brazil, on India and on China in a massive way.”

The NATO chief said Europe would find the money to ensure Ukraine was in the best possible position in the peach talks. He said under the agreement with Trump, the US would massively supply Ukraine with weapons – “not just defence, also missiles, also ammunition paid for by the Europeans”.

Rutte had recently made headlines after he went out of his way to impress Trump. In the private messages shared on social media by Trump, Rutte had told the US President, “You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done. Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win,” after the US attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities. Calling the strike extraordinary, Rutte had said, “Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe, and the world.”