Briefing journalists on the Pence meeting, foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale said, “He (Modi) did point out that the mainstreaming of people involved in the Mumbai attacks in a political process which has taken place in the recent elections in Pakistan should be a matter of serious concern not just to the two countries — India and the US — but to the international community.”
PM Modi also reminded the US vice-president that in one way or another all the traces and all the leads in global terror attacks ultimately lead to a “single source and single place of origin”, in an apparent reference to Pakistan.
The foreign secretary said, “There was a sense of convergence both on bilateral issues and on global issues and we look forward to taking the relationship in coming months and in 2019”.
“There was some good understanding of the areas of how we move forward in building cooperation on counter-terrorism and both countries recognised this is a challenge which we have to fight together and to fight along with the rest of the international community,” Gokhale said.
India also called for an early end to negotiations for an Asian free trade agreement, the regional comprehensive economic partnership.
Modi and Pence continued their discussion on maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific. “Spoke about our shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific & reaffirmed our commitment to strengthen security and counter-terrorism cooperation and coordination,” Pence tweeted after the meeting.
Modi became the first head of government to address Singapore’s famous FinTech festival. Pitching India as the “best” investment destination for global tech giants. He said India is experiencing a digital revolution of unprecedented speed and scale that has enabled financial inclusion of 1.3 billion Indians. “Technology is defining competitiveness and power in the new world and it is creating boundless opportunities to transform lives,” Modi said.
The PM also met his Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, Thailand PM Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, as well as Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong.
from Times of India https://ift.tt/2Fk4ZcY
