New Delhi, May 9
United States’ Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca made a brief stop-over here this morning en route to Kathmandu, primarily to adopt a coordinated approach between Washington and New Delhi on Nepal.
Ms Rocca held an hour-long meeting with two Joint Secretaries of the Ministry of External Affairs in South Block Jaishanker (Americas) and Ranjit Narayan (Nepal, Bhutan). The focus of her discussions was Nepal.
Though Indo-US relations were reviewed to a certain extent — explained by the presence of Mr Jaishanker at the meeting — the discussions remained focused on Nepal. Ms Rocca was extensively briefed about India’s feedback on Nepal by Mr Narayan, who shared with her the assessment of Indian Ambassador in Nepal, Mr Shiv Shanker Mukherjee. Mr Mukherjee, who had been summoned by the Government of India for consultations, was here till last weekend.
An American diplomat here said that Ms Rocca remained here for a few hours only and the purpose of her brief visit was to thrash out a common policy approach so that India and the USA do not speak to Nepal in different voices. Ms Rocca told the Indian diplomats that Washington and New Delhi had calibrated approach on Nepal, and Washington felt that the lifting of emergency on April 30 was a good development, but not good enough.
On the critical question of resumption of defence supplies also, the approach of New Delhi and Washington is similar: that the issue is “under review” and that King Gyanendra needed to revive the multi-party democracy system and at the same time initiate dialogue with the Maoist insurgents.
Both India and the USA agreed with the assessment that any military supplies to Nepal at this stage could be fraught with dangerous consequences not only for Nepal but also for the region as it was not sure against whom these military supplies would be used.
