Blinken likely to ‘deepen ties’ with India on his visit to the country

On July 28, Blinken will hold a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, external affairs S Jaishankar, and National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval.

On Friday, the United States said that it expects to discuss ways to ‘further deepen’ bilateral ties, the Quad, Afghanistan, and the COVID 19 pandemic during its Secretary of State Antony Bliken’s scheduled visit to India from July 27.

According to reports, on July 28, Blinken will hold a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, external affairs S Jaishankar, and National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval. Later in the day, he is expected to leave for Kuwait. Earlier, Blinken visited India as the deputy secretary of state in Barack Obama’s administration in 2015.

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Dean Thompson, assistant secretary of the state for south and central Asia told reporters on Blinken’s visit, “We expect the discussion to focus on ways to further deepen our bilateral partnership, which is very broad in scope, as well as increased convergence on regional and global issues”,

He further added that on bilateral issues, the US expects the discussions to be focused on ‘expanding our security, defense, cyber and counterterrorism cooperation.” Reportedly, more of these issues will be part of the upcoming 2+2 ministerial dialogue between the foreign and defense ministers of both countries later this year.

Furthermore, Thomson stated that Afghanistan will figure prominently among regional issues. India is a ‘critical partner in the region”. “We welcome India’s shared commitment to peace and supporting economic development in Afghanistan.”

Meanwhile, India has been concerned about the rapid gains by the Taliban in Afghanistan as the US-led international forces wrap up their 20-year-old operations and thereby departs, ahead of its deadline of September 11. As per reports, the US military has informed that it has evacuated nearly 92 percent of its forces.

Thompson further underlined that the discussions on India will be on ‘how we can work together to realize the aim of a peaceful and secure Afghanistan’ and thereby to ‘find ways to bring the parties together and continue to pursue a negotiated settlement to end the longstanding war.’

The state department official informed that the development in the Indo-Pacific will be reviewed in the secretary discussions, emphasizing the importance laid down by President Joe Biden to the region by calling a virtual summit of the Quad involving Australia, Japan, India, and the US in March, just after two months of assuming his office.

Thompson added, “We are working with India and other friends and partners in the region to advance this shared vision of Indo-Pacific.” He further mentioned, “Importantly we will discuss our health collaboration to combat COVID 19, including the Quad vaccine partnership that was first announced during the President Biden’s Quad summit.”

According to reports, the Quad summit has initiated a joint effort at the summit to distribute nearly 1 billion doses of COVID 19 vaccine in the Indo Pacific region by the end of 2022. The initiative is funded by Japan and the US, manufactured by India, and is then distributed by Australia. However, the roll-out has been delayed as India struggled in the massive second wave of the pandemic.

Global Challenges like climate change are likely to be discussed in secretary Blinken’s meeting on his visit.

On the US-India Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 partnership introduced in April, Thompson commented, “The partnership will reinforce our collective effort to achieve both the goals of the Paris Agreement and our own ambitious 2030 targets for climate action and clean energy.”