US Prez says tour fantastic, CAA is India’s internal matter
US President Donald Trump said here on Tuesday he discussed the issue of religious freedom at a great length with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but there was no talk on the Delhi violence or the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, (CAA).
On the Kashmir issue, the US President said “it is a thorn in many sides” and added “every story has two sides.” Trump said he is a good friend of both Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and repeated his offer to help resolve the Kashmir issue if he is asked. He also talked about Afghanistan pullout, H1B visa, and a whole range of issues with Modi.
Making these points at a Press conference, Trump said he discussed the issue of religious freedom with the Prime Minister during his comprehensive talks and that the Indian leader wants people to have this freedom.
Describing Modi as a “terrific” leader and India as a “tremendous country,” Trump said, “We did talk about religious freedom. Prime Minister Modi wants people to have religious freedom in India...If you look back, India has worked hard for religious freedom.”
However, when asked if he discussed the violent incidents here during his visit, he said that he did not discuss individual attacks with Modi and “that is up to India”.
Asked about his position on the CAA, the President said, “I don’t want to discuss that, I want to leave that to India. I hope they will do the right thing for the people of India.”
Trump, who held talks with Modi on the second and the last day of his visit, said these were great and fantastic two days. “I’m gonna be not at all controversial because...I don’t want to blow the two days plus two days of travel on one answer, one little answer, like John will ask me one simple question and you will blow it out and that will be the end of the trip. You won’t even talk about the trip. So I will be very conservative in my answers if you don’t mind,” Trump said.
Describing the Kashmir issue as a “big problem” between India and Pakistan, he said it is “a thorn in a lot of people’s sides” and reiterated his offer to mediate between the two countries to ease the tension.
“If anything I can do to mediate, I will do,” he said, adding that Pakistan figured in his talks with Modi. “I have good equation with Pakistan PM Imran Khan. They are working to control cross-border terrorism,” he said.
The US President also talked with Modi about his country’s peace deal with the Taliban, and said that India will like to see it happen.
On defence ties, he said India is buying a lot of military hardware from the US. On the issue of trade, he said India is probably the nation with highest tariffs and noted that the Harley Davidson has to pay “huge amount of tariff.” The US has to be treated fairly, he added. To a question about reports of Russia trying to influence the US presidential poll, he said intelligence agencies never shared such information with him.
Earlier, while giving details about the extensive talks between the two leaders, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said the CAA did not come up for discussion noting that the two leaders talked about religious harmony in a “positive way.”
In response to a question on whether the contentious CAA and the National Register of Citizens were discussed, Shringla said the new citizenship law did not come up in the talks.
“The issue of CAA did not come up, but with regard to what you mentioned, the term religious freedom, there was appreciation from both sides that pluralism and diversity are a common binding factor of both the countries,” he said.
“You would have heard President Trump in his speech yesterday in Ahmedabad referred to religious diversity and harmony that is evident in India and discussions really to the extent possible were on these lines on this issue,” Shringla told reporters.
In response to a question he said, “religious harmony was discussed in a positive way” between the two leaders and added that discussion on Jammu & Kashmir centred on positive developments in the region. “Things were moving in the right direction,” he said on discussion on Jammu & Kashmir during Indo-US talks.
On trade, Shringla said there has been “very useful” and comprehensive discussions. “There was appreciation that trade has increased year-on-year steadily over the last few years. The US exports to India has increased fairly dramatically and there was noticeable adverse trade imbalance decline from USD 30 billion a few years ago to USD 25 billion,” he said.
He said adverse trade imbalance is also gradually eroding with greater amount of acquisitions we are making in areas of oil and gas and purchase of commercial aircraft.
“The US is India’s largest trading partner and it accounts for 12 per cent of our total export and India is emerging as a very large market for the US too,” Shringla said.
“There are complementarities in this because there are a lot of areas in which we require goods and technologies which we don’t have from the US and vice versa and there is mutuality of benefits in these complementarities. These are the areas we want to focus on when we start discussions on a large trade agreement,” he added.