U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj are slated to meet in the next two months, before the >visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington in September .
While exact dates and even the venue is yet to be nailed down, those familiar with the discussions between >visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Biswal and her counterparts, said preparations for the Strategic Dialogue — an annual ministerial level India-U.S. engagement, could take several weeks more, and a “mutually convenient date” may only be possible in August 2014, but would certainly take place “this summer”.
The Kerry-Sushma meeting will signal the first political level engagement between the Obama administration and the Modi government, and is significant given the strain in India-U.S. ties in the past few months.
ADVERTISEMENT
It is learnt that during her meeting Ms. Biswal discussed restarting talks on Commerce, Infrastructural investments and FDI, as well as defence sales and cooperation, dialogues that have been held up since 2013.