Political India: Engaging America

Labels: Department of Justice, Devyani, diplomatic immunity, domestic worker, human trafficking, India, Khobragade, Preet Bharara, Richard, Sangeeta, State Department, strip-search, U.S. Marshals

From The Hindu

The United States finds itself doing a precarious tightrope act between India and Pakistan this week, with the U.S.-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue kicking off in Washington exactly two weeks ahead of President Barack Obama boarding a flight to India.

Nowhere was the tension more evident than in Wednesday's State Department briefing and, more specifically, on the subject of Afghanistan. At the briefing, Department spokesman P.J. Crowley hinted that Pakistan had been “meddling” in Afghanistan's politics and emphasied that India would continue to play a constructive role in Afghanistan.

Mr. Crowley's first salvo came in response to a question on whether countries such as India and Iran — and not just Pakistan — had a role in the ongoing reconciliation talks between the Hamid Karzai government in Afghanistan and the Taliban.

He responded, “We recognise Afghanistan's need to have a dialogue with its neighbours. We have had concerns about Iran's meddling in Afghanistan, just as we have had concerns about other countries meddling in Afghanistan,” a likely reference to Pakistan.

Suggesting that Pakistan's earlier support to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan might still rankle in the U.S.' memory, Mr. Crowley noted: “To the extent that the Taliban once ruled Afghanistan, there were a small number of countries that recognised that government. Pakistan was one of them.”

However, Mr. Crowley said that “to the extent that the solution to Afghanistan does involve a regional solution”, the U.S. recognised countries like India “had an interest in a stable Afghanistan and can play a constructive role”.

To reach that regional solution, dialogue was essential and hence, the U.S. was engaging Afghanistan's key neighbours to build effective, sustainable relationships across the region.

This was one of the reasons why Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke had talked about the importance of the transit trade agreement — an agreement that would improve trade between India and Afghanistan routed through Pakistan.

There was a clear message to the visiting Pakistani delegation in Washington as well. Mr. Crowley said: “We have made no secret of the fact that we've told Pakistan clearly that we believe that the existential threat to Pakistan is not India; the existential threat to Pakistan involves extremism within its own borders.”

And, equally, a hint to India: “Likewise, we're having a similar conversation with a country like India. We believe that there the potential for cooperation certainly outweighs what might be perceptions about competition in the region.”

The State Department had also clearly determined that peace and stability in Afghanistan would not be feasible without Iran's contributions to the process. Notwithstanding the differences on nuclear politics, Mr. Crowley said, “we have not ruled out that there are overlapping areas of interest that we have with Iran with respect to a stable and prosperous Afghanistan. We are not ruling out that as an area of potential dialogue…”

Labels: Afghanistan, Pakistan, President Barack Obama, State Department, U.S., US-Pak strategic dialogue

From The Hindu

What started out as a war of words between President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia, even as far back as 2007, has now become an open diplomatic conflict in a multilateral forum and threatens to escalate into something worse.

The most recent round of hostilities between the two countries was sparked off at a meeting of the Organisation of American States in Washington earlier this week, when Colombian Ambassador Luis Hoyos, produced what he alleged was documentary evidence that Venezuela was housing camps of the rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on its soil.

In an immediate response, President Chávez severed ties with Colombia describing the Colombian accusations as a “United States-inspired aggression”. Speaking on state television Mr. Chávez said, “We have no other choice but, out of dignity, to totally break our relations with our brother nation of Colombia,” he said on state television.

In a sharp response to the cut-off in diplomatic ties, Mr. Hoyos, called it a “historic mistake”, adding that Venezuela should instead be breaking relations with the “gangs that kidnap and kill and traffic drugs”.

Hinting that there could be a deeper subtext, Mr. Chávez went on to argue that Colombia could be trying to provoke a war, indeed that American officials were “using Colombia to portray him as a supporter of terrorist groups to justify a U.S. military intervention in Venezuela”. He also reportedly said that the photographs that Mr. Hoyos procured at the OAS meet were not authentic and noted that Venezuela had done everything possible to prevent Colombian rebels from crossing into its territory.

Washington, which has traditionally been critical of the Chávez regime, attacked the Venezuelan President’s actions. State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley described them as “unfortunate” and a “petulant response by Venezuela to cut off relations with Colombia”. He added that if Venezuela failed to cooperate in whatever follow-on steps are made, “the U.S. and other countries will obviously take account of that”.

Mr. Crowley further said, Venezuela had “very clear responsibilities” to combat terrorism in the region and to support efforts by the OAS and the United Nations to fight terrorism especially given the U.S.’ “concerns about the links between Venezuela and the FARC” and the fact that Washington had not certified Venezuela in recent years as fully cooperating its antiterrorism efforts.

Indicating the U.S.’ support of President Uribe’s accusations he added, “These were serious fact-based charges that Colombia made yesterday at the OAS and they deserve to be fully investigated.”

Labels: Álvaro Uribe, Colombia, Hugo Chavez, State Department, U.S., Venezuela

From The Hindu

The United States has “made clear in conversations with many countries… [that there] cannot be a situation of business as usual” with Iran, a senior State Department official said on Monday.

The comments, by Assistant Secretary Philip Crowley, were by way of response to the recent statement by Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao that unilateral sanctions by the U.S. would affect the business of Indian companies in Iran. Ms. Rao had also said that India’s energy security and development needs would be affected by such sanctions.

Outlining the U.S. view on adherence to the Iran sanctions Mr. Crowley emphasised, “Every country obviously pursues its own self-interest of its citizens. We understand that. By the same token, all countries have international obligations to fully respect and to heed the sanctions that were passed by the Security Council last month.”

He added that the U.S. was taking “our own steps to fully implement those sanctions and to take additional steps within our own laws” noting also that it was “up to Iran to come forward and engage the [International Atomic Energy Agency] IAEA and the international community constructively.”

Arguing that the “future of the world” was at stake, Mr. Crowley warned of “the danger of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, which will affect countries outside of the region, including India”. He said that all countries had a responsibility to do what they could to convince Iran to change its present course. “I’ll leave it to India to describe what steps it is going to take,” he added.

He did not immediately comment on whether the U.S. was talking to either India or Pakistan regarding their plans for a gas pipeline project with Iran.

With inputs from analyst Nisha Krishnan

Labels: IAEA, India-Iran ties, Iran sanctions, State Department

From The Hindu

Nirupama Rao, India’s Foreign Secretary, will co-chair a meeting of the India-United States High Technology Cooperation Group (HTCG) with Dennis F. Hightower, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce on March 15, according to Mr. Rahul Chhabra, Minister for Press, Information and Culture.

With a focus on expanding bilateral trade in strategic and high technology areas including “sensitive items”, the forum aims to provide a platform through which industry suggestions could substantively feed into inter-government meetings to be held the following day.

This industry dialogue is organized in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

Speaking to The Hindu Ms. Ranjana Khanna of FICCI said that at the forum FICCI would hope to highlight export control issues. Citing the controls implied by the “Denied Persons List” of the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Statistics, Ms. Khanna added that reducing such controls would help spur trade in areas such as defence, aviation, life sciences and nanotechnology.

Apart from meetings in the Commerce Department, Ms. Rao will also be meeting senior members of the U.S. administration as well as the members of Congress. She is also slated to participate in a discussion at the Wilson Center on “Two Democracies: Defining the Essence of our Partnership”.

At her State Department meetings Ms. Rao will “review the progress made on various elements of the Revised Dialogue architecture”, according to Mr. Chhabra. She will also discuss plans for the visit of Indian External Affairs Ministry officials to the U.S. later this year, for the next round of Strategic Dialogue between the two countries.

Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma will also be in Washington DC on March 17-18, and in New York on March 19. Top on his agenda is a series of meetings with United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.

On March 17, Mr. Sharma and Mr. Kirk will sign the India-U.S. Trade Policy Forum Framework for Cooperation on Trade and Investment. The Framework aims facilitate trade and investment flows between the two countries, and will address five areas, according to a statement by Mr. Chhabra: tariff and non-tariff barriers, services, agriculture, investment and creativity and innovation.

The visits by both Mr. Sharma and Ms. Rao come amidst clear signs that the Prime Mininster’s state visit last November has led to a wide spectrum of engagement between India and the U.S.

Their interactions will add momentum to such industrial lobbies as the India-U.S. Private Sector Advisory Group, the Board of U.S. Council for International Business, the India Business Forum and the new India-US Economic and Financial Partnership. In particular the Partnership will be formally launched in New Delhi on April 6, by Finance Minister, Mr.Pranab Mukherjee and U.S. Treasury Secretary, Mr. Timothy Geithner.

Labels: CII, FICCI, Foreign Secretary, Nirupama Rao, State Department, United States