India-US dialogue

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin will visit New Delhi next week for the 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue with their Indian counterparts, External Affairs Minister

S Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. India will be the last stop on Blinken’s tour of five nations — Israel, Jordan, Japan and South Korea. In the run-up to the visit, US Assistant Secretary for Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu has stated that Washington and New Delhi share the goals of preventing the Israel-Hamas conflict from spreading; preserving stability in West Asia; and advancing a two-state solution.

It is evident that Washington does not want the India-Canada diplomatic standoff to impede its talks with New Delhi. The US has been urging the Indian government to cooperate with Canada on the investigation into PM Trudeau’s allegations of an Indian hand in the murder of designated terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan went to the extent of saying that no country could get any ‘special exemption’ for such actions. However, Delhi has stood its ground and forced Ottawa to downsize its diplomatic presence in India.

The US seems to have finally realised that the onus is on Canada to share irrefutable evidence with India regarding the Nijjar case. Moreover, India did the US a good turn recently by abstaining from voting in the UN General Assembly on a resolution calling for an ‘immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce’ between Israeli forces and Hamas militants in Gaza. The US had joined Israel and a few other countries in voting against the resolution that was moved by Jordan. The pragmatic approach adopted by both India and the US bodes well for their bilateral ties. No irritant should be allowed to mar the growing closeness between them in strategic and defence domains.