Wrapping up the 2015 edition of the U.S-India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue in Washington on Wednesday, U.S Secretary of State John Kerry said that the United States has reaffirmed its joint commitment to a secure and stable Afghanistan and that with his Indian counterparts had discussed the next steps in helping Kabul to strengthen its institutions and combat the threat posed by violent extremists.
Joined by his co-chair, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj; his U.S cabinet colleague, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker; and by her counterpart from India, Minister Nirmala Sitharama, Kerry said numerous issues facing Central and South Asian countries had been discussed.
He said: "We have agreed to step up our cooperation in fighting the menace of terrorism. We have recognized the threat posed by Lashkar-e Tayyiba and other groups operating from safe havens in [central Asia] region, and the need for Pakistan to bring to justice the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. I'm happy that we have been able to conclude a joint declaration on combating terrorism, to expand our counterterrorism partnership."
Swaraj meanwhile said: "We have said we reiterate that threat posed by al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e Tayyiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, D-Company and the Haqqani Network and other regional groups that seek to undermine the stability in south Asia, then we call for Pakistan to bring to justice the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attack."
"So another bullet says we strongly condemn the July 27, 2015 terrorist attack in Gurdaspur, Punjab, and August 5, 2015 attack in Udhampur, Jammu and Kashmir. This demonstrates the fact that we are determined to fight terrorism together," he added.
Kerry meanwhile said that "a main takeaway from our discussions includes our shared view that we need to keep the big picture, the strategic framework of relationship, in mind, especially when it comes to our strategic security and political interests regionally as also internationally as also when we deal with trans-sectional issues."
"We also talked about creating new substantive underpinnings to deepen bilateral engagement, including in the fields of defense, security, cyber, energy, climate change, science and technology, space, health, and other areas of economic development," he said.
He said: "We did talk about ISIL (Daesh) specifically. We are committed to try to augment our efforts with respect to ISIL and other groups. Over the last six years, the intelligence community here in the United States has worked with all of our partners, and particularly with India also, in order to stop attacks before they happen. This specifically grew out of the Mumbai events, and we know it's difficult to do, but we're working cooperatively to be able to do that.
Swaraj said meanwhile that he and Kerry had shared each other's strategic priorities, interests, and concerns on issues of mutual interest, including security and counterterrorism, confidences in India's Act East policy, and the U.S. rebalance in Asia. Secretary Kerry and I agreed to work towards forming India's membership of APEC."
LINK: https://www.ansarpress.com/english/4209
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