New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet US President Donald Trump Monday on the sidelines of the ongoing G7 Summit in France to discuss issues related to Kashmir and the unabated rise in trade irritants between New Delhi and Washington.
This will be their first meeting after the Modi government’s 5 August move to scrap Article 370 and bifurcate Jammu and Kashmir.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) confirmed the meeting in a statement released early Monday.
While Trump had stated his intentions to meet Modi last week before he left for France, the MEA didn’t confirm the meeting until the last moment.
Both leaders have arrived at the French resort town of Biarritz, where they are expected to thrash out issues ahead of their formal meeting next month when Modi travels to the US.
‘Regional implications’
According to a senior Trump administration official, “The President will likely want to hear from Prime Minister Modi on how he plans to reduce regional tensions and uphold respect for human rights for Kashmir, as part of India’s role as the world’s largest democracy.”
The official who was speaking during a background briefing Friday in Washington also said the US recognises India’s move to rescind Article 370 in Kashmir as an internal decision, but it has “regional implications” and Trump “will likely want to hear how Prime Minister Modi intends to calm regional tensions in light of this significant move”.
Trump is likely to stress the “need for dialogue among all sides of the conflict and his hope that India would lift the communications and movement restrictions in Kashmir and exercise the utmost restraint in dealing with potential protests”, said the official.
“And certainly, President Trump is also calling on Pakistan to prevent the infiltration of militants across the Line of Control that divides Kashmir and to crack down on groups on its territory that have attacked India in the past,” added the official.
Also read: No need for third party interference in Kashmir, says France’s Macron after talks with Modi
Trade tensions
On his part, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to seek a mutually convenient date for a meeting between Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and US Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer, sources told ThePrint.
Sources said Goyal has not been able to get an appointment from Lighthizer since July in an effort to sort out issues in two-way trade as the US now wants a “concrete and meaningful (trade) deal” from New Delhi.
US is keen to have a favourable deal from India as its chances to negotiate such a trade pact with Beijing look increasingly slim.
For Washington, a meaningful trade deal would entail India’s lowering of tariff and greater access to its markets for American agricultural goods, dairy produce and medical devices, among others. Besides, it also wants India to go for an easy policy as far as storage of data by US multinationals is concerned.
The two leaders will discuss all these issues more elaborately with their respective ministers in tow when Modi visits US next month for the UN General Assembly meet in New York.
Also read: How a dispute over American chicken legs pushed India-US trade ties downhill
‘2+2’ meet in September
India and US are also slated to hold the second edition of the ‘2+2’ dialogue in September in Washington. The first round was held in New Delhi in the same month last year.
The meet will see India’s Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh hold talks with their US counterparts Mike Pompeo and Mark T. Esper, respectively.
The preparatory ‘inter-sessional meeting’ of the 2+2 concluded last Thursday in Monterey, California.
The Indian delegation was led jointly by Gourangalal Das, joint secretary in MEA, and V. Anandarajan, joint secretary in Ministry of Defence. The US delegation was led jointly by ambassador Alice Wells, acting assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, and Randall Schriver, assistant secretary of defence for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs.
Jaishankar and Singh, too, have had discussions with their counterparts in the run-up to the 2+2 talks.
The ‘two-plus-two’ ministerial dialogue was agreed upon between the two sides during the visit of PM Modi to Washington in June 2017. In last year’s 2+2 talks, both sides had signed a key defence pact.
Also read: 5 dangerous Right-nationalist myths on Kashmir that need to be demolished