Blinken to meet Modi and Jaishankar on Wednesday in India trip
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will speak next week in India about supporting Afghanistan as worries grow in New Delhi about Taliban gains amid the end of the two-decade US military mission, officials said in an AFP report.
On his first visit to the emerging US ally since taking office, Blinken will also look to resume work together on supplying COVID-19 vaccines and explore greater security and cyber cooperation, officials said.
Blinken will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on the trip Wednesday and afterward hold separate talks in Kuwait.
Dean Thompson, the top US diplomat for South Asia, said that Blinken would welcome India’s “shared commitment to peace and supporting economic development in Afghanistan.”
“We expect that all the countries in the region have a shared interest in a stable and secure Afghanistan going forward and so we will certainly be looking at talking with our Indian partners about how we can work together to realize that goal,” Thompson said
India’s enthusiastic support for the Afghan government, including helping build a new parliament building, has fueled suspicions in Pakistan.
India recently evacuated 50 diplomats and others from its consulate in Kandahar although it insisted personnel would return as soon as security improves.
Biden, in a shift in tone if not substance from his predecessor Donald Trump, as a candidate voiced subtle criticism of Modi’s government over controversial steps including a citizenship law that critics say discriminates against the Muslim minority.
Thompson said the US “will raise” human rights issues but added: “We firmly believe that we have more values in common on those fronts than we don’t.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited New Delhi as part of his first overseas trip but Blinken’s travel was put on hold amid a severe outbreak of Covid-19 in the billion-plus country.
The Biden administration had seen India as a key partner on fighting COVID-19 with a deal announced in March for India to produce one billion Covid vaccine doses with US, Japanese and Australian support.
“This is such a critical country in the fight against Covid-19,” Blinken said of his India trip during an interview on MSNBC.
“We have millions of vaccines ready to go to them when they finish their own legal process to bring them in. And India is the leading country when it comes to the production of vaccines,” Blinken said.
“Of course, they’re focused understandably on their own internal challenges now, but when that production engine gets fully going and can distribute again to the rest of the world, that’s going to make a big difference, too.”
Biden last month vowed to provide 500 million vaccine doses around the world and the US has since been making near-daily announcements of shipments, seeing a global defeat of COVID-19 as critical both to the world’s economy and US leadership.