Jaishankar, US State Secy Blinken discuss ways to strengthen bilateral ties

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday congratulated Antony Blinken for his appointment as US Secretary of State and also discussed ways to build further on the "solid foundation" of the India-US partnership.

Following the telephonic conversation with Blinken, Jaishankar said in a tweet, "Warm conversation with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Congratulated him on his appointment. Look forward to working with him again. Agreed that we could build further on the solid foundation of our partnership. Also discussed our efforts at combating the COVID-19 pandemic."

Jaishankar and Blinken expressed their commitment to consolidate and expand the multi-faceted strategic partnership. They appreciated the robust defence and security ties, growing economic engagement, productive health-care collaboration and strong people-to-people linkages as its important pillars, according to an official statement by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

"Recognising the challenges of a post-Covid world, they agreed to work together to address global issues, including safe and affordable vaccine supply. They also reiterated their commitment to peace and security, especially in the Indo-Pacific region," the MEA said.

The two ministers further said that they look forward to remaining in close touch.

On January 19, Blinken had reiterated that India and the United States have "very strong" potential to work together and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been a "very strong" advocate of renewable energy and different technologies.

At his nomination confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Blinken said that India has been a bipartisan success story of the US successive administrations, adding that there are "many ways in which we can deepen that corporation".

"India has been a bipartisan success story of our successive administrations. It started towards the end of the Clinton administration... During the Obama administration, we deepened cooperation on defence procurement and information sharing and the Trump administration carried that forward including its concept of Indo-Pacific and to make sure we were working with India so that no country in the region including China could challenge its sovereignty and also working with it on concerns that we share about terrorism. There are many ways we can deepen that cooperation that successive administrations have put us on," he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

On August 15, Blinken participated in a panel discussion on Indo-US ties. Addressing Indian American Democrats on India's Independence Day at the US-India Relations and Indian Americans in US President Joe Biden's America virtual event, Blinken affirmed how Biden would be a champion of India-US relations.

He had said that Joe Biden sees India and the US as natural partners and that the vision, he will help to make real as the president.

( With inputs from ANI )