Given the current geo-political situation in South Asia, a top Barack Obama administration official on Thursday confirmed that Pakistan will figure in talks when United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets Indian leaders, during her upcoming visit to India. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake appreciated the recent meetings between the leaders of India and Pakistan and identified it as a positive development.
The Barack Obama administration has said the meeting of foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan, held in New Delhi on Thursday, is a 'courageous' step by the leaders of the two neighbouring countries. "We certainly commend the leadership of political courage and making sure that the meeting takes place. Now, the challenge is to build on this going forward," said Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs P J Crowley.
Dr Rajiv Shah, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development and the highest-ranking Indian American in the Barack Obama administration, has set the record straight over conflicting reports that he had visited a relief camp run by a front organisation of Jamaat-ud-Dawa in Pakistan's Sindh province and handed over US aid.The JuD is headed by Hafiz Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Tayiba and alleged mastermind of the horrific 26/11 terror attacks.
The protectionist measures in the West and attacks on Indian students in Australia is likely to negatively affect the Indians' overseas job dreams and the aspirants may prefer domestic offers, experts believe.
As the United States grapples with the Af-Pak problem, eight Indian-American organisations on Wednesday appealed to the Barack Obama administration to make military aid to Pakistan conditional and ensure that it is not used against India.In an unanimous resolution, passed after a Capitol Hill briefing on 'Cross-Border Terrorism in Kashmir and the Hindu (Pandit) Victims: Challenges and Solutions', they urged Obama to make sure that the aid is not used against India.
United Stated Defence Secretary Robert Gates will visit India next week during which the situation in Afghanistan, Pakistan and regional security issues will dominate the agenda of his talks with the Indian leadership. The January 19-21 tour of Gates will be the first high-level visit from the Barack Obama administration after the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Washington in November last year.
The Barack Obama administration's top diplomat for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, has admitted that the United States is getting battered by the Taliban in the information war in the Federally Administered Tribal Area and the Northwest Frontier Province in Pakistan. He warned that the 'success' in the US-led assault on these militant groups would ring hollow if there is no propaganda victory against these extremists."We are losing that war," he said.
The United States has said that it will vote against an exemption for China to sell two civil nuclear reactors to Pakistan at the Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting, in a new move to step up pressure to get the controversial deal annulled. Making it clear that the US will oppose the recent decision of China to sell two nuclear reactors to Pakistan, a top Barack Obama administration official told lawmakers that Washington will vote against the China-Pakistan deal.
Former United States vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has won the dubious honour of telling the biggest political 'Lie of the Year'. A panel of experts chose her claim -- that the Barack Obama administration was planning to introduce 'death panels' -- as the most misleading statement of 2009, the 'PolitiFact.com' reported. The claim set political debate afire when it was made in August.
A top official of the Barack Obama administration on Saturday said that Indian Muslims are not terrorists, though many of them are increasingly tired of being defined as such. "I talk about the bloggers that I meet in India who are tired of Muslims being defined as terrorists," Farah Pandith, the United States Special Representative to the Muslim Community, said. "They're getting out there and talking about what's happening in India," she said.
India should carve out a policy response that protects India and its interests from the negative externalities of the US strategy in Afghanistan, writes Harsh V Pant.
Senior administration officials acknowledged that US wants India to be a key stakeholder in the development efforts in this beleaguered country, where winning the hearts and minds of the populace will be imperative in the war against the al Qaeda, Taliban and other extremists elements.India's experience and expertise on helping the US in its developments efforts would be invaluable, because "there is a clear recognition that Indian aid to Afghanistan has been effective."
The Obama administration continues to be gravely concerned over the plight of Tamil civilians caught up in the crossfire between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sri Lankan security forces but has no plans to launch a massive military evacuation by the US Pacific Command till there is a halt in the hostilities in the conflict zone, senior administration officials revealed.
Ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Washington, the United States has said preparations are underway to ensure 'a good, substantive schedule' for the Indian leader, the first state guest of the Barack Obama administration. President Barack Obama has invited Dr Singh for his first State Dinner at the White House on November 24. Officials at both the State Department and the White House have held a series of meetings to give final touches to the visit.
India has pressed the new Barack Obama Administration to lift the 'unnecessary' restrictions on international trade with New Delhi on dual use items and technology. Addressing a meeting at the prestigious Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think-tank, prime minister's special envoy on climate change Shyam Saran also hoped that America would scrap the so-called entity list, which prohibits sale of US technology to a number of Indian companies.
United States Senator from Massachusetts John Kerry has said that the Barack Obama administration would not send its troops to combat militants on Pakistani soil. Kerry also emphasised that it is a fight that the Pakistanis have to engage in and fight out, asserting that Islamabad can overcome militant challenges through a homegrown approach."We're not going to send troops by any significant numbers of any kind to Pakistan," he said.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has met top US officials to discuss the Barack Obama Administration's review of the Afghan policy.
Seeking a resolution of the Kashmir issue for lasting peace, Pakistan Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani on Thursday said Pakistani people were disappointed that the United States Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke's mandate did not include India and hoped that the Obama administration would review the matter.
"We will intensify our engagement with Association of South East Asian Nations, China, and India to press the Burmese leadership to reform and to participate responsibly in the international community," Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Public Affairs, Kurt Campbell said.
'Pakistan,' says former US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R Nicholas Burns, 'has an obligation to work with India and to give India the type of support needed to ensure that these types of attacks will not occur again. Therefore you cannot hide behind the definition of non-state actors. Every government has a responsibility to control the situation on its own territory. India needs the kind of reassurances from Islamabad that has not yet been forthcoming.'
Unites States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has spoken to President Asif Ali Zardari to share with him the vision of President Barack Obama's administration and its policies towards the region and Pakistan.During a brief telephone conversation with Zardari on Thursday night, Clinton discussed the situation in the region and Pakistan-US relations.Zardari congratulated Clinton on assuming the post. He also welcomed Obama's desire to seek 'a new way forward' with Muslims.
Gearing up for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's state visit, top officials of the Barack Obama administration, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have discussed the key areas of 'strategic dialogue' that the US plans to have with India.In preparation of Dr Singh's visit to Washington on November 24, Clinton on Wednesday attended a meeting of the US-India Strategy Dialogue to review the progress and identify key areas to be accomplished.
The incoming Barack Obama administration is likely to appoint veteran troubleshooter Richard C Holbrooke as a special envoy to Pakistan and India amid tensions in the sub-continent following the Mumbai terrorist strikes.
United States Senator John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, has profusely apologised and expeditiously gone on damage control mode after stating that 'a rising India' is a grave threat to the US. The Senator from Texas states that the F-22's are "important to our national security because we're not just fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We're fighting --we have graver threats and greater threats than that: From a rising India, with increased exercise of military power'.
It is not all hosannahs for India in the report, however. Terming it as a 'complicated rise', the report says over the next 15-20 years Indian leaders will strive for a multi-polar international system, with New Delhi as one of the poles, and serving as a political and cultural bridge between a rising China and the US
Reaffirming that United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to India will expand the areas of cooperation, a top Barack Obama administration official said Washington intends to deepen and strengthen the strategic partnership with New Delhi. "India is a global power. I think, as the Secretary reflected earlier this week and will certainly do so when she is in India, there is an opportunity to expand the areas of cooperation," he said.
Noting that the Barack Obama administration is keeping a close watch on the Hamid Karzai government, the White House on Wednesday said that the Afghanistan president should not expect a blank cheque in his second term. "I think you heard the President speak clearly at West Point (at New York in December 2009) and since then about the need to take governance seriously; that there was not an open-ended blank cheque for waste and abuse going forward in Afghan," said an official.
The United States may seek to gain leverage from the WikiLeaks disclosures about the Inter Services Intelligence's links with the Taliban and the Al Qaeda to make Islamabad act tougher on militant groups on its soil. "This is now in the open," a senior Barack Obama administration official said, referring to the 92,000 documents of the US defence department's war in Afghanistan made public by the online whistleblower WikiLeaks.
The Barack Obama administration is facing a dilemma with respect to Pakistan as unlike Afghanistan, it cannot send its troops there to fight Al Qaeda and Taliban and needs to find other means, top United States Special Envoy for the region Richard Holbrooke has said. "The dilemma is that the leadership of both the Al Qaeda and the Taliban are in a neighbouring country (of Afghanistan) where our troops cannot fight. And therefore we have to find other means," he said.
The Barack Obama administration has asserted its commitment towards implementing the India-United States civilian nuclear agreement, a landmark foreign policy achievement by the previous George W Bush government. The US Department of Energy on Thursday issued a statement, following the conclusion of a three-day meeting of the 'US-India Civil Nuclear Energy Working Group'.
Seeking to explain the absence of the terror activities directed against India, in the United State's new Af-Pak strategy, India has said the Barack Obama administration was 'looking at' terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad 'off-camera'.Welcoming the Af-Pak policy unveiled on Tuesday, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said the pressure maintained by the US on the Taliban and the Al Qaeda there is in the interest of India.
As the Barack Obama administration proposes to pump billions of dollars into Pakistan, United States' Congressmen have insisted that Islamabad must be made accountable in lieu of the massive aid. Grilling top army and defense officials, members of the powerful House Armed Services Committee wanted to know from the officials, testifying before it, that the administration has a mechanism to ensure that more than $10 billion being given to Pakistan is not wasted.
Close on the heels of the Barack Obama administration approving reconciliation efforts with the moderate elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the United States has categorically ruled out any similar settlement with the al Qaeda. "We have no interest in any kind of reconciliation or any rapprochement by anyone with al Qaeda," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. "Only the Taliban, we never said al Qaeda," she said.
Observing that the Barack Obama administration is looking at Pakistan through a different lens than its predecessors, a former American diplomat on Wednesday said that the new United States government would quietly focus itself on Kashmir, away from the public gaze. William Milam, the former US Ambassador to Pakistan, identified Kashmir as one of the issues on which the Obama administration would focus on while trying to find a solution to Pakistan.
An Asia Society task force -- working on advancing relations between India and United States -- on Friday urged the incoming Barack Obama administration to pursue deeper collaboration with New Delhi for mutual benefits on a host of global challenges raging from security and economic growth to climate change, education and tackling HIV/AIDS.
Amidst reports that North Korea has invited top American diplomats to Pyongyang for a bilateral dialogue, the United States has asserted that there is no such plan for its officials to travel to the country. The Barack Obama administration also reiterated its condition for having any bilateral dialogue with North Korea within the framework of six-party talks.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said it would take quite some time before a decision in this regard is taken by the Obama administration; whose plan to try the 9/11 mastermind in a New York court had to be scuttled due to strong opposition from the New York Mayor and lawmakers from the State.
The payment of $1,90,000 to a high-profile lobbyist firm in Washington, BGR Holding, was made by RIL in the first quarter of 2009, and is the first instance of any lobbying by the Indian company with the US lawmakers.
The Barack Obama administration is honouring Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as its first state guest later this month, during which 'at least 10-12 agreements and MoUs' are likely to be signed, but it seems that China will be the new 'dragon' in the room when the two leaders meet in the White House.Dr Singh arrives in Washington DC on November 22, only three days before Obama would have returned from his maiden but extensive Asia tour which begins on November 11,.
The buying of the aircraft was 'seen as a misuse of money at a time when the bank is reliant on public support'. The report said that Citi, which earlier insisted that it would go ahead with the purchase of the jet, backed out after officials acting for Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, expressed strong opposition to the move.
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