Festering discomfort mars Indo-US ties.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Desai Biswal and Indian Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh met for the first time in India on Wednesday, during which the latter asked her American counterpart to address and help resolve the lingering Devyani Khobragade incident so that the two countries can get back on track and move forward in their relationship.
Khobragade’s arrest in December, and the subsequent diplomatic fall-out it resulted in, was the main reason Biswal’s original trip to India in January got postponed until now, as both Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi refused to meet a US diplomat in protest of Khobragade’s post-arrest strip-search. Now that both sides are talking, they are trying to distance themselves from the diplomatic fiasco as much as possible.
Reports indicate that both the US and India side expressed a desire to reinvigorate talks on several factors, and that it was crucial to jump-start the momentum of dialogues on both sides. Unfortunately, the US and India have run into several roadblocks over the past few months – in addition to Khobragade, the US and India have irked each other on the pharmaceutical, airline, and energy fronts.
In addition to her meeting with Singh in New Delhi, Biswal has also had high-level discussions with Vikram Doraiswami, the Joint Secretary for the Americas, who works in the Ministry of External Affairs. His position is the closest equivalent to that of Biswal, who oversees Central and South Asia for the US State Department.
Biswal’s visit is her first to India since taking office in November. Later this month, her trip to the subcontinent will be followed by that of US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who will likely try to mend the relationship on that front now that the US has taken India to the World Trade Organization (WTO) over allegations that India has been unfairly discriminating against US workers and products in its domestic solar program.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com