India and the United States have "not signed" the End User Monitoring Agreement, said Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon on Tuesday
India's 8 percent-plus growth has opened up opportunities where India is, for the first time, in a position to offer unprecedented opportunities to US businessmen in the nuclear power, space and manufacturing sectors.
Menon said the current global economic crisis figured prominently during his meetings with officials of the Obama administration and congressional leaders in his trip to Washington.
The situation in Sri Lanka, where thousands of Tamil civilians are trapped in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's strongholds, permeated the 45-minute discussion on Monday between United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon. This was the first high-level interaction between India and the Obama administration in Washington.
National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon will be leaving on a four-day trip to China on Saturday.
Former Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, on Friday, dismissed the view that China plans to encircle India through military bases in the Indian Ocean, saying the 'string of pearls' is a "pretty ineffective murder weapon".
Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon arrived in the United States on two-day visit to the US with a series of scheduled meetings including with officials at the State Department, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns.
Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon on Wednesday briefed Congress Members of Parliament about various aspects of the Indo-Pak joint statement issued at Sharm-el Sheikh, hours ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's intervention on the issue in Parliament. Menon briefed a group of party MPs from both the Houses on the technical details of the statement so that they were aware of all the details of the communique before the discussion on the issue, sources said.
Sources in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) told Business Standard that National Security Advisor (NSA) Shiv Shankar Menon will meet top leaders of the BJP and the CPI(M) to explain the salient features of the Bill.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has invited Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to visit Pakistan, while the latter renewed his invitation to the former to visit India during their meeting in New York. Briefing reporters, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said both leaders accepted each other's invitation, but dates have not been decided yet.
Indicating that Dr Singh will take up with Zardari the issue of continued cross-border terrorism and ceasefire violations, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon asserted that an atmosphere free of violence and terror was necessary for the dialogue process between the two countries to move ahead.
President Obama was seen patting Saran's back after the Copenhagen negotiations, but he characteristically laughed it away when I mentioned it in my TV conversation with him. Saran will be missed in the government, but he will be a welcome addition to the strategic community, which will benefit from his immense experience and innate wisdom
On the eve of the Nuclear Suppliers Group's extraordinary plenary meeting to decide on nuclear commerce with India, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon will brief the current chair Germany and two other key members of the 45-nation NSG.
Displaying anger at the Kabul embassy blast in which "elements" based in Pakistan were involved, New Delhi on Monday said the incident had vitiated the atmosphere putting the dialogue process "under stress" and asked Islamabad to address its concerns.
Though the main focus of talks between Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and his Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir is on peace and security, Jammu and Kashmir and CBMs, other issues like release of prisoners, visa relaxation, trade and commerce will also come up for discussions.
India on Friday urged the Sri Lankan government to cease its offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and declare a truce in the conflict zone. The Centre also rushed National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon to Colombo to step up its diplomatic pressure.The decision was taken at a meeting in New Delhi on Thursday, attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, who wrapped up three days of intensive discussions with the hierarchy of the new Obama administration at the State Department, White House, and Pentagon, and also met with the leadership in the US Congress, apparently has every reason to be satisfied that the transformed US-India relationship is ready to be launched to the next level of the partnership.
On the eve of the first high-level talks between India and the new Obama Administration in Washington, with the arrival of Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, who will meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior US officials later today (Monday), outgoing Ambassador Ronen Sen has dismissed concerns over the momentum of the relationship under the new dispensation in DC.
Indian Foreign Secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon will arrive in Washington on Sunday and will be holding meetings with top Obama Administration officials on a wide range of bilateral and regional issues. Taking the Indo-US relationship to the next level - from what was accomplished during the Bush Administration - is going to be the main focus of this first high-level Indo-US interaction after Barack Obama was sworn in as the USPresident on January 20.
No decision has yet been taken, however, on which match the general would witness.
"There are individual areas where we think there are activities and infrastructure development. We have ways of dealing with this and it has always been successful," Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon told media persons during a briefing on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's maiden visit to Beijing beginning Sunday.
The 58-year-old diplomat, who was ambassador to China before her new assignment, will have tenure of 17 months as the top foreign ministry official. Prior to her stint in China, she has served in various key positions, including India's High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and was the first woman spokesperson of the External Affairs Ministry.
Was that an invitation or a signal that the process of regular interactions between foreign secretaries, home secretaries, director generals of military intelligence will be back on track is anybody's guess.
India on Friday said it was confident of the passage of the Indo-US civil nuclear deal as it enjoyed bipartisan support among lawmakers, assuring that American firms would not be put at a disadvantage even if there is delay in getting a Congressional nod for the accord.
Speaking to media persons aboard Air India 001, conveying Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to Moscow, Menon said, "This is one relationship without any wrinkles or difficulties." The foreign secretary was reacting to an inquiry whether Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's refusal to meet External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on the latter's visit to Moscow last month.
India on Friday described as "constructive and useful" the two-day meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in the run-up to securing a clean exemption for conducting international nuclear commerce.
Previously, for nearly a decade, we had no body for analysis, assessment and follow-up action. Today we have three --- the JIC of the old vintage, the NSCS of the 1998-99 creation and the National Security Advisory Board, which came into existence in 1999 as a body of non-governmental analysts and advisers on national security. From a state of practically no analysis, we have gravitated to one of a plethora of analysis.
Accusing "elements" in Pakistan for the suicide attack on Indian mission in Kabul, India Monday made it clear that the recent spate of terror attacks and ceasefire violations triggered from across the border have put the peace process "under stress". In some tough-talking, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon told his Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir that these concerns of New Delhi must be addressed.
Even as the proposed H-1B visa curbs and possible elimination of this programme by the United States Congress is on the cards, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said in Washington on Wednesday that there's absolutely nothing India can do about it because it's a sovereign prerogative of the US.
Menon said he would not like to jump to any conclusion as to which terrorist group was behind the Jaipur bomb blasts. Asked if the government of India was taken by surprise by the series of bomb blasts that shook Jaipur on Tuesday night particularly when it came after firing from across the border from the Pakistani Rangers and the killing of innocent persons in Samba sector in Jammu resign, the foreign secretary said that peace and security would be high on the agenda.
"The two delegations engaged in productive discussions on working together to address global challenges. They examined new and expanded areas for India-US cooperation," sources said.
Menon will on Tuesday hold discussions with the US Under Secretary Nicholas Burns amid 'frustration' in the US at the slow pace of negotiations and India's insistence on right to reprocess spent nuclear fuel.
"Bilateral talks usually focus on a broad range of issues: from the crucial international problems, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and response to international terrorism, to the coordination of the working issues of bilateral cooperation."
According to a source in government, "We have three pieces of evidence right now of the involvement of people based in Pakistan. One is the satellite phone through which calls were made to Pakistan from Mumbai. Two, the interrogation statement of the captured terrorist has lots of details which will help demolish Pakistan's claims that there are no terrorist camps inside Pakistan. Three, the dead bodies of nine terrorists and the proof of identity found on them."
"We want to take relations forward," Menon said in his opening remarks.
India would like to see a consensus that builds on essentially the ideas that the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi put forward of a nuclear weapon free world --moving towards it in pre-determined, verifiable time frame.
The draft 123 Agreement will be given to the American side by Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon on Tuesday when he visits Washington for the High Technology Cooperation Group meeting.
In diplomacy, it is inadvisable to be a straggler, as you may end up crawling back on a pitiless greasy pole.
Backing Iran's right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy, India has said that "no country can put pressure" on Tehran in that respect as it sought establishment of strategic partnership with the oil-rich Persian country.
The Nation quoted Kasuri as saying in Islamabad that Pakistan welcomed the statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to make Siachen 'a mountain of peace'.
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