US to do everything to support India for G-20 success

Washington: The US is looking forward to doing everything it can to support India's work to make its G20 presidency a success and Secretary of State Antony Blinken would attend the crucial meeting of the foreign ministers of the grouping next week in New Delhi, a senior official has said. Blinken will also attend a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Quad grouping and will hold bilateral talks with his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar in Delhi. India assumed the Presidency of the G20 on December 1 last year.

The top American diplomat is travelling to New Delhi on a three-day official visit from March 1 to 3. "Blinken looks forward to going to Delhi as part of India's G20 presidency year. We look forward to doing everything we can to support India's work to make its G20 presidency a success," Ramin Toloui, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, told reporters here.

"There is no shortage of common challenges, and we want to deepen our partnership with other G20 countries to address these challenges," Toloui said.

Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Donald Lu said Blinken will be meeting India's External Affairs Minister Jaishankar. "They'll talk about our strategic partner partnership but really focus on how we're working together in the Asian Quad, in the G20, what we're doing on defence cooperation and the Initiative for Critical and Emerging Technologies that is being run out of the White House and the (Indian) prime minister's office," he said. "On March 3rd, the Secretary will also participate in a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Asian Quad, which is the United States, India, Japan, and Australia," Lu said, adding that immediately following the Quad ministerial meeting Blinken will participate in a panel at the Raisina Dialogue.