The United States Secretary of State John Kerry met the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday to discuss Indo-US Strategic and Commercial dialogue at Jawaharlal Nehru Bhawan in New Delhi.
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“We agreed that nations must not maintain double standards, such as the categorization of good and bad terrorists”, the minister said at a joint news conference with her United States counterpart John Kerry.
According to NDTV, Kerry hailed India as an “established power with a footprint that affects the entire planet”, and said the India-US pact will affect the whole world.
Divulging detail of their dialogue, Swaraj said, “Secretary Kerry and I discussed at length the issue of terrorism, which is the key challenge to the global community, and the foremost threat to worldwide peace and security”. United States continues to support all efforts to bring the perpetrators of Mumbai and the Pathankot attacks to justice and we can not and will not make distinction between good and bad terrorism.
Both the countries also agreed that Pakistan needs to take swift action to catch the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks and the Pathankot attack.
She said she and Kerry had had a “meeting of the minds” on cross-border extremism that India and its neighbors face from militants in Pakistan. It is well known that LeT and Haqqani network have operated from Pakistan, Kerry said. “There was discussion on terror and clearly we agreed on all points”, Swaraj said.
Sehgal said the talks between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj went off exceptionally well. “We also agreed that countries must not categorise terrorists as good or bad”.
He mentioned the meeting between the Defence Ministers of India and the U.S., who have signed a a defence logistics agreement during their meeting in the US. “I’ve talked to Pakistan prime minister and General Raheel Sharif for the need for Pakistan to deprive any group (terrorist) of sanctuary”, he added. Kerry also cited the US President Barack Obama, who deemed the Indo-US relations as a ” defining partnership of the 21st century”.
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Addressing a session at IIT-Delhi here, he said terror groups like Daesh, Al Qaeda, LeT and JeM can’t be fought by a single nation alone.
