Kerry in India for strategic, commercial talks

Visiting US secretary of state John Kerry said on Tuesday that the United States “fully” backs India on its demand that Pakistan should act against terrorists operating from sanctuaries on its soil, but stopped short of lambasting Islamabad, saying that Pakistan has taken some action near its western border (with Afghanistan) against the Haqqani network.

India’s Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj said she hoped the next USA president would continue the dialogue that also seeks inputs from companies, which this year included e-commerce giant Amazon and wireless technology firm Qualcomm.

“Even though we are witnessing impressive gains in India’s economic growth, there is still a real question as to whether we are doing so quickly enough”, said Kerry.

On his part, Kerry said, “U.S. continues to support all efforts to bring the perpetrators of 2008 Mumbai and 2016 Pathankot attacks to justice”.

Kerry arrived in New Delhi on Monday night for the annual U.S. -India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue after a one-day stop in Bangladesh where he discussed increased militant attacks.

August 31: Hailing the joint statement of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on the involvement of Pakistan in encouraging terrorism, the Janata Dal (United) on Wednesday expressed hope that America changes its relative neutrality policy with Islamabad.

Asserting that India’s enhanced global role was in mutual interest, she said, “It is in this context, we look forward to continuing working closely with the United States to secure our membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and permanent membership of the UN Security Council”.

The two sides are also cooperating in the field of space.

Tuesday’s talks were being held against the backdrop of rising tensions in the disputed region of Kashmir, long a flashpoint between India and rival Pakistan.

Apart from counter-terrorism, the two sides during the Dialogue, which was also co-chaired by commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman and United States secretary of commerce Penny Pritzker, discussed issues of commercial, regional and worldwide interests.

Kerry said the U.S. continued to support all efforts to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai and Pathankot terror attacks to justice.

India has kicked aside in recent years numerous trade barriers and New Delhi has set a goal with Washington to expand bilateral trade five-fold to $500 billion annually.

“I am happy to note that there was a meeting of minds on this issue”, she said. He also extended U.S. support to upgrade India’s power grid.

Kerry also mentioned that the key challenge for the world is the fight to preserve the planet use clean energy and fight climate change and appreciated India’s strong stand on climate change. “We want to take our expanding defense cooperation to the next stage of co-production and co-development”, Swaraj said. “This was underlined by the enthusiasm of the US Congress with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June this year”, Parrikar said.

But at their last strategic talks before President Barack Obama steps down in January, India today signalled its jitters over whether it had got enough from the USA in return for a series of deals Washington has pushed through successfully. Kerry twice referred to the Indian as “Sushma”, who smiled but herself stuck to a formal “Secretary Kerry”.

They called on Pakistan to also do more to prosecute perpetrators of terror attacks. Both Sushma and Sitharaman today articulated concerns over the fee hike with their respective counterparts, who agreed to “look into” the worries but made no commitments.