India, US to hold several highlevel meets next week

Senior officials from India and the US will hold several high-level interactions over the next few days that are likely to be the last for the Obama administration.

Defence minister Manohar Parikkar is scheduled to hold his third meeting with US defence secretary Ash Carter on Monday, at which officials hope to wrap up a defence deal which has been in the works for a while.

Calling the defence partnership “the most ambitious one over the past several years”, a US official said, previewing the meetings on background, that the logistics agreement between the two countries — Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement — which was finalised during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s June visit, could be signed in the “near future whether or not if that is going to be part of minister’s visit or not”.

Also on Monday secretary of state John Kerry will be reaching New Delhi for the seventh India-US Strategic and Commercial Dialogue. He will be joined by commerce secretary Penny Pritzker for the dialogue on Tuesday, along with representatives from 12 US agencies. Kerry is also scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and national security adviser Ajit Doval. The secretary of state will meet Modi.

“I wanted to underscore that this is ostensibly the last strategic dialogue of the Obama Administration and ostensibly Secretary Kerry’s final visit to India, although I will never rule anything out,” the official said.