New Delhi: US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard is set to travel to India as part of her trip to the Indo-Pacific, which includes stops in Japan and Thailand, with a brief halt in France, she announced Monday. A number of issues, such as the case of the foiled “murder-for-hire” plot against Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun and the Russia-Ukraine war, are expected to figure in discussions during the upcoming visit.
“I am #WheelsUp on a multi-nation trip to the Indo-Pacific, a region I know very well, having grown up as a child of the Pacific,” said Gabbard in a post on X. “Building strong relationships, understanding, and open lines of communication are vital to achieving President Trump’s objectives of peace, freedom and prosperity. First stop: Honolulu where I’ll visit IC partners and INDOPACOM leaders, and our troops engaging in training.”
This would be the first visit to India by a senior official from the second administration of President Donald Trump. It is Gabbard’s second international trip, following her appearance at the Munich Security Conference last month.
While it was not clear exactly when Gabbard will arrive in India, US media reports said she is likely to make an appearance next week at the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi. She was invited to the security conference by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a meeting last month, the New York Times reported.
She is expected to hold bilateral meetings with Indian officials on the sidelines of the gathering, a senior Trump administration official told the NYT.
The foiled murder-for-hire plot in New York against Pannun is one of the issues that could come up in discussions. The trial against Nikhil Gupta, who was allegedly behind the plot to murder the Sikh separatist and founder of the India-designated terrorist organisation Sikhs for Justice (SfJ), is expected to begin in June or July this year.
A high-powered committee set up by the government of India in November 2023 had recommended legal action against the Indian “individual” involved in the alleged plot.
The US director of national intelligence, in an address on 18 March, is also expected to speak on counterterrorism cooperation, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and intelligence sharing, the NYT said.
PM Modi met Gabbard last month during his two-day visit to Washington DC. “The discussions touched on enhancing bilateral intelligence cooperation, particularly in counter-terrorism, cybersecurity, emerging threats, and strategic intelligence sharing. They also exchanged views on regional and global developments of mutual interest, reaffirming their commitment to a secure, stable, and rules-based international order,” the Ministry of External Affairs readout of the meeting said.
Interactions with European officials likely
Gabbard’s likely appearance at the Raisina Dialogue, organised by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), could also see her rub shoulders with a number of European delegations, including from Ukraine and potentially Russia.
The US administration under Trump has been pushing for a ceasefire in the 3-year-old war between Russia and Ukraine. Last month, the US president spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the phone and held a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House.
The meeting with Zelenskyy ended with a heated argument in front of the cameras between the Ukrainian president and Trump and US Vice-President J.D. Vance before the rest of the scheduled events were cancelled. The US has repeatedly accused Zelenskyy of not being ready for peace.
Following the meeting, Trump went a step further by suspending military and intelligence aid to Kyiv in an effort to pressure Zelenskyy to negotiate a peace deal with Russia without security guarantees from the US. Zelenskyy has argued that Putin has violated such deals in the past.
Senior US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, last month as part of Trump’s outreach to Moscow. Ukraine was not a part of the discussions and has said it will not accept any peace deal that is negotiated without its involvement.
Similarly, senior officials from Washington DC and Kyiv are expected to meet Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, where Ukraine is expected to outline its own proposals for a ceasefire.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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