Sushma meets Ivanka Trump
US President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka and India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj discussed here women empowerment and the upcoming Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Hyderabad. Ivanka Trump, who has the official title of Adviser to the President, tweeted afterwards: “I have long respected India's accomplished and charismatic Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, and it was an honour to meet her.”
“We had a great discussion on women entrepreneurship, the upcoming GES2017 and workforce development in the US and India," she tweeted after the Monday meeting.
External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said that they also discussed women empowerment and social issues.
Holding the GES in India was agreed upon by President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to the White House in June and Trump announced his daughter would lead the US delegation. India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met with Prime Ministers Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh and Tshering Tobgay of Bhutan and five Foreign Ministers in interactions that mostly focused on bilateral issues, according to a ministry spokesperson.
Raveesh Kumar described the meeting with Hasina on Monday as a courtesy call with no substantive discussions. During the meeting with Tobgay, they discussed development projects that India was sponsoring in the Himalayan kingdom.
In reply to a question, Kumar said that the recent Doklam crisis in which Indian and Chinese troops faced off in Bhutan's territory did not figure in the talks or matters relating to defence. Sushma Swaraj began the day with a trilateral meeting with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Kono, where she raised the issue of countries with "linkages" to North Korea's nuclear programme, a clear reference to Pakistan which had been involved in a nuclear-formissile technology swap, but she did not name it.
Asked if it was a reference to Pakistan, Kumar noted that no names were mentioned and said her statement was emphatic and clear that "proliferation linkages must be explored and those involved be held accountable" and it was for reporters to interpret it.
During what Kumar described as "very hectic and active day," Sushma Swaraj attended US President Donald Trump's summit on reforming the UN.
Trump backed plans by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to reform the global organisation, but confined his comments to mostly the secretariat and bureaucracy, peacekeeping and the budget.
While India has consistently maintained that the UN needed to be reformed, it wanted a comprehensive reform that also dealt with bodies like the Security Council, Kumar said. IANS