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| Image: Flickr User - MEAPhotogallery |
By Ankit Panda
The United States and India wrapped up their first-ever Strategic and Commercial Dialogue.
The first U.S.-India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue wrapped up in Washington D.C. today. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker met with their Indian counterparts, Sushma Swaraj, the external affairs minister, and Nirmala Sitharaman, the minister of state for commerce and industry. The dialogue resulted in a joint statement outlining a range of new bilateral commitments and initiatives, and builds on the momentum in bilateral ties generated during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s September 2014 trip to the United States, and U.S. President Barack Obama’s reciprocal trip to India in January 2015. The joint statement and related statements and speeches from the two days of talks are posted on the U.S. State Department’s website here.
The “strategic” component of the dialogue was outweighed by the “commercial” side. Though both sides gave lip service to important strategic issues relevant to the U.S.-India bilateral relationship, including regional stability, terrorism, nonproliferation, Afghanistan, and the recent deal over Iran’s nuclear program, there was little new. Both sides addressed the issue of terrorism with a specific joint statement, which, among other things, called on Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks to justice. What’s notable in the broader statement, however, is that the U.S. thanked India for its “leadership in evacuating foreign nationals, including U.S. citizens, from conflict in Yemen” (you can read about India’s involvement in Yemen in my earlier report for The Diplomat here). Additionally, both sides highlighted an upcoming India-U.S.-Japan trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the 70th UN General Assembly (Japan is also set to return to the Malabar joint naval exercise this year). The statement also notes the United States’ support for India’s UN Security Council bid as a permanent member, which remains unchanged since 2010.
Read the full story at The Diplomat