NSA Ajit Doval to Visit Washington to Address US Concerns Over India's S-400 Missile System Deal With Russia
NSA Ajit Doval's visit to Washington comes ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s India visit scheduled for next month.
New Delhi, September 13: National security advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval is likely to visit Washington this week to address US concerns over India's deal with Russia of the S-400 missile system, said media reports.
NSA Doval's visit to Washington comes ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s India visit scheduled for next month. President Putin will be hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 4 and 5 in New Delhi. President Putin will be in India for the annual bilateral summit.
Doval on his US visit will try and convince the Trump administration to consider offering a waiver on India's missile deal with Russia from the provisions of CAATSA, which stands for Countering America’s Adversaries Through the Sanctions Act.
Earlier this year in May, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow and discussed a host of issues such as combating terrorism, organised crime and drug trafficking.
Doval, who was accompanied by Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale during his visit, had also held talks with Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev besides calling on Lavrov, an Indian Embassy statement said.
The visit, which was part of the regular dialogue at the NSA-level between the two countries, comes ahead of summit talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin in India scheduled for October this year.
In his opening remarks during the meeting with Doval, Lavrov was quoted as saying by an official Russian statement, "We have a very full agenda in our bilateral relations. Economic ties are growing, and a mechanism is being developed to further liberalise trade both bilaterally and as part of India's cooperation with the Eurasian Economic Union."
The two countries' foreign policy coordination is making steady progress as part of regular bilateral contacts between the relevant agencies, as well as in the context of their partnership promotion in multilateral formats, he said. (With Agency Inputs)
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 13, 2018 09:55 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).