US Deputy Secretary of State and former US Ambassador to India Richard Verma was last week given additional charge as US Special Representative for Ukraine’s Economic Reforms. Photo Credit: The Hindu
Expressing “pleasure” over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “important visit” to Kyiv this week, a senior US official visiting New Delhi said it was clear that the global community has taken a stand against Russia’s war in Ukraine.
US Deputy Secretary of State and former US Ambassador to India Richard Verma was last week given additional charge as US Special Representative for Ukraine’s Economic Reforms and visited India and Nepal for meetings.
His remarks come weeks after the US State Department’s critical comments on Mr Modi’s July 9 visit to Moscow, indicating that Mr Modi’s decision to visit Poland and Ukraine has now been appreciated in Washington.
Speaking at a discussion on “The United States and India: A Partnership of Progress and Promise” organised at the Delhi-based Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), Mr Verma said, “I am very pleased to be on this visit and I think it is an important visit.” He outlined recent developments in bilateral ties. “What we have seen in the last two and a half years is an attempt by Russia to destabilise the global order and to overturn the post-war world order,” he said. He accused Russia of occupying Ukrainian territory in violation of international law.
“We understand India’s long relationship with Russia, and India has to decide for itself where it wants to stand on this scale”, Mr Verma said, praising Mr Modi’s statement that this was “not a time for war”. “But this is a very important time to defend freedom, liberty and the rule of law”, he said, later adding that he was “looking forward to the outcome” of Mr Modi’s visit to Kyiv.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has so far not commented on Mr Modi’s visit to Ukraine, which comes at a time when Ukrainian forces have reportedly made advances in Russia’s Kursk region. The Russian Embassy in India also did not react to Mr Verma’s comments. On Monday (August 19, 2024), MEA officials had dismissed questions on whether Mr Modi had decided to visit Ukraine because of US pressure, saying India’s relations with Russia and Ukraine are independent of each other and are not a “zero-sum game”.
During his visit to the region, which included a stop in Kathmandu, Mr Verma met External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. Neither side explicitly mentioned the situation in Ukraine or India’s potential role in the conflict, and Mr Jaishankar said only in a social media post that they “talked about the continued momentum in our bilateral relations, and exchanged views on some regional and global issues”.
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In his lecture, Mr. Verma highlighted several areas where India-US relations have strengthened over the last few years, making special mention of joint projects in climate change, advanced technology, space and cancer research.
Rana extradition request
Meanwhile, responding to a question about the long-pending Indian request for the extradition of Tahawwur Hussain Rana, wanted as a co-conspirator in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, a US embassy official confirmed that a US court has rejected his appeal.
“We are fortunate that we have an extradition treaty with the Government of India that allows extradition between our countries. [Rana’s] “Our lawyers filed an appeal, which you saw was rejected by the courts,” US embassy spokesman Chris Elms said on the same program.
He said “this matter continues to move forward in the United States legal system”, but did not give details about how long it might take for Mr Rana, who has been in custody in a Los Angeles jail since 2020 pending an extradition hearing, to be extradited to India to face trial here.