New York, Oct 2 (IANS) India and US hope to take forward their cooperation on Afghanistan following the first US-Afghanistan-India trilateral dialogue, officials said after “positive” talks between External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Meeting here Monday on the sidelines of the ongoing UN general assembly session, Krishna and Clinton “held a positive discussion on a broad range of bilateral and regional issues,” a State Department senior official said.
The two reviewed last week’s trilateral dialogue and discussed regional economic integration projects including the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, he said.
Official Indian sources said Clinton and Krishna had assessed the first trilateral dialogue “positively and hoped to take forward their cooperation on that front.”
The two also discussed regional cooperative efforts in South Asia and India’s look east policy and they were again supportive of it, the sources added.
On his part, Krishna raised the possibility of US permitting the export of shale gas in liquefied form to India and was told Washington would keep India’s energy needs in mind as they decide on some domestic issues relating to export of shale gas, sources said.
Krishna and Clinton also discussed their joint efforts on energy, civil nuclear cooperation, visas, trade and bilateral investment, and expanding cooperation with India’s neighbors and near-neighbors, the State Department official said.
Clinton welcomed the steps India and Pakistan have recently taken to develop closer trade and commercial ties, he said.
They both expressed their sorrow at the tragic shooting at a Wisconsin Sikh gurdwara in August, he said.
Krishna expressed his condolences on the death of US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi and noted his concern regarding protests at the US Consulate in Chennai.
