After holding bilateral talks with the new US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar flagged concerns about the prolonged delays faced by Indian citizens in obtaining US visas, describing it as a critical issue requiring urgent attention. After the meeting, he said he emphasised the "strong degree of trust" between India and the United States during the meeting and acknowledged the strength of the bilateral relationship.
Jaishankar said he flagged some concerns which are very widespread in India about delays in visas and the relationship is not well served if it takes that many days for people to get a visa because ultimately those visa delays do impact business, they do affect tourism.
“They in many ways constrain the people to people interactions, which is the foundation of our relationship. When I spoke about the strong trust between us, I think we would like to translate the trust more and more into an actual partnership,” he said.
Briefing on his bilateral meetings with Rubio and Waltz, he said: “Between us and the Trump Administration, we approach the world both with a clear sense of our national interest belief.”
“We have a very strong degree of trust today between India and the United States. A very high level of convergence of our interests and a sense that while we serve our national interest, while we build our bilateral partnership, definitely on regional issues and global issues, there is a lot of good that we can do,” he said.
Noting that the Trump administration was keen to have India present at the inaugural itself and is prioritising the bilateral relationship, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday that the ties are being built further on the strong foundation that has been laid.
Interacting with the media here, Jaishankar said the Trump administration is keen to take Quad further and intensify its activities.
"If I were to share my overall impressions, I would say one, it was very keen. It was very clear that the Trump administration was keen to have India present at the inaugural itself. They're clearly prioritising the bilateral relationship. Secondly, in the meetings, it was also evident that they would like to build on the foundation of the relationship, a foundation which the first Trump administration also contributed a lot to building," Jaishankar said.
"President Trump and Prime Minister Modi at that time took a number of initiatives, and we have seen that mature in many ways. And the third impression was, with regard to the Quad, a very strong sense that the current administration would reciprocate our desire as well to take the Quad further, to intensify its activities," he added.
(With inputs from agencies)