While increasing the pace of their counter-terrorism activities, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Secretary of State of the United States of America John Kerry called for Pakistan to work towards bringing the perpetrators of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks to justice.
India had recently registered a protest with Pakistan over regular adjournments on the trial going on in Pakistan. During the 5th Strategic Dialogue meeting, India and US talked about their commitment to eliminate terrorist safe havens and infrastructure, and disrupting terrorist networks including Al-Qa’ida and the lashkar-e-Taiba.
Even though US is against extradition of David Headley, for his alleged involvement in Mumbai attack, both countries agreed to improve mutual legal assistance and extradition processes. In a joint statement, the two leaders committed to intensify efforts to combat terrorism, proliferation of WMDs, nuclear terrorism, cross-border crime, and address the misuse of the internet for terrorist purposes and working towards greater cooperation in cyber security and reducing cybercrime.
Kerry had on Thursday visited IIT Delhi and said India and US can be involved in lot of joint researches and ventures in science and technology,
and human resource development sectors. New initiative on Promoting Energy Access through Clean Energy (PEACE) was discussed. PEACE will help in bringing Indians in rural areas access to off-grid sources of clean energy such as solar technologies, second generation biofuels and in cities energy efficient buildings to reduce demand for power for air-conditioning.While talking on commitment for implementation of the India-US Civil Nuclear Agreement, India’s NPCIl and US companies Westinghouse and General Electric-Hitachi were urged to expedite the necessary work to conclude pricing and contractual details. US said it looked forward to advancing the Government-to-Government dialogue and facilitating the establishment of US-built nuclear power plants in India. In September 2013, Westinghouse was given Authorization to Proceed to implement the pre-Early Works Agreement with NPCIl.
India and US will intensify activities in Earth Observation, Space Exploration and Satellite Navigation.New focus areas may include joint realisation of dual frequency microwave satellite for earth observation and launch services. Both sides plan to continue discussions on space security in 2014 to include areas of mutual interest such as space situational awareness and collision
avoidance. Swaraj and Kerry reaffirmed commitment to jointly support other partner countries, through capacity-building in Afghanistan, agriculture management projects in Kenya, liberia and Malawi, and Open Government Platforms in Rwanda and Ghana. Importance for building transport and trade connectivity between South Asia and ASEAN, via Myanmar, by developing economic corridors too was discussed.