There was an unmistakable frostiness in the fall air as state department spokesperson declined to preview the conversations US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will have in his meeting with India’s External Affairs Minister S.Jaishankar, even as he said Washington has raised the Nijjar killing issue with New Delhi and “encouraged them to cooperate with the Canadian investigation.”
“We continue to encourage them to cooperate,” State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.
India-Canada row: “India remains an important partner…” US State Department
The gentle chiding came even as Jaishankar arrived in Washington DC from New York for bilateral talks after attending the annual UN General Assembly meetings. He is scheduled to meet Blinken and other senior administration officials on Thursday afternoon.
On their part other officials engaged in bilateral talks projected a business-as-usual face in keeping with New Delhi’s approach that differences between the two sides notwithstanding, the US remains an “optimal choice” as a partner for India.
“When we look from the Indian perspective, you can say that there is an even more finite list of countries who can be partners. If I have to make choices, to me, US is really an optimal choice. There is today a compelling need for India and US to work together,” Jaishankar said at a think-tank event earlier in the week in New York where the spat with Canada trailed him.
Watch: EAM Jaishankar’s point-by-point rebuttal to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s charges on Nijjar killing
In keeping with that spirit, the two sides held the seventh U.S.-India 2+2 Intersessional Dialogue to advance what they said is “a wide range of ambitious initiatives across the breadth of the U.S.-India partnership, including defense and security, emerging technologies, people-to-people ties, clean energy, and supply chain resilience.”
“The officials underscored the transformative momentum in U.S.-India relations and reaffirmed that a strong U.S.-India partnership is essential to upholding security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region. Assistant Secretary Ely Ratner reaffirmed the Department’s commitment to working with India to advance our shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific,” a Pentagon spokesman said, indicating that the Canada wrinkle will not detract the two sides from the bigger picture.
Department of Defense spokesperson John Supple said Ratner and his Indian counterparts reviewed the progress the two countries have made on implementing the Roadmap for U.S.-India Defense Industrial Cooperation, welcomed progress on new co-production initiatives, and committed to expeditiously conclude negotiations on Security of Supply Arrangement and Reciprocal Defense Procurement agreements.
Did US Secy Antony Blinken raise Canadian allegations with S Jaishankar?
They also discussed opportunities to further strengthen interoperability and logistics cooperation, including through combined maritime engagements in the Indian Ocean region, as well as expanded cooperation in the space and cyber domains. The officials also discussed regional security developments and strategic priorities across the Indo-Pacific region, he added.
But over at Foggy Bottom, headquarters of the State Department, the US-India engagement looked to have the blues. On Wednesday evening, Blinken, an accomplished guitarist, hosted a global music diplomacy event where he “Hoochie Coochie man,” a song first recorded by the group Muddy Waters. No Indian diplomat attended the event although a key member of the delegation tweeted a link to the song that concluded with the line,s “But you know I’m here/Everybody knows I’m here/ Well, you know I’m the hoochie coochie boy/ The whole round world know we here.”
India-Canada diplomatic Row: ‘We want to see accountability…’, says Antony Blinken
