After holding bilateral talks with the new US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar flagged concerns about the prolonged delays faced by Indian citizens in obtaining US visas, describing it as a critical issue requiring urgent attention. After the meeting, he said he emphasised the “strong degree of trust” between India and the United States during the meeting and acknowledged the strength of the bilateral relationship.
Jaishankar said he flagged some concerns which are very widespread in India about delays in visas and the relationship is not well served if it takes that many days for people to get a visa because ultimately those visa delays do impact business, they do affect tourism.
“They in many ways constrain the people to people interactions, which is the foundation of our relationship. When I spoke about the strong trust between us, I think we would like to translate the trust more and more into an actual partnership,” he said.
Briefing on his bilateral meetings with Rubio and Waltz, he said: “Between us and the Trump Administration, we approach the world both with a clear sense of our national interest belief.”
“We have a very strong degree of trust today between India and the United States. A very high level of convergence of our interests and a sense that while we serve our national interest, while we build our bilateral partnership, definitely on regional issues and global issues, there is a lot of good that we can do,” he said.