Sushma confronts Kerry with snooping

SUHASINI HAIDAR

‘Since we are friendly nations, it is not acceptable to us’

In India’s strongest statement on the issue yet, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called the U.S. surveillance of Indian entities “unacceptable”, and said she had taken up the issue of “snooping” by the National Security Agency (NSA) with Secretary of State John Kerry during the India-U.S. strategic dialogue here on Thursday.

“I did raise the snooping issue with Mr. Kerry,” Ms. Swaraj told presspersons at a joint press conference. “I told him that people in India were angry. I told him that since we are friendly nations, it is not acceptable to us.”

In reply, Mr. Kerry said, “We do not discuss intelligence matters in public. We value our relationship with India. President [Barack] Obama has undertaken a unique and unprecedented review of our intelligence.”Ms. Swaraj said India and the U.S. had now hit a “new level” in their relationship.

Even so, no breakthroughs marked the strategic dialogue between India and the U.S. on the trade facilitation talks at the WTO, Mr. Kerry admitted. While talks were still in progress in Geneva, the deadline for India to sign the Trade Facilitation Agreement expired on Friday.

The two leaders met and were joined by their delegations as they spoke for approximately four hours, and followed their press conference with a “working dinner”. However, given the lack of breakthrough in talks over WTO, pharma concerns, patent rights and U.S. restrictions on visas for skilled Indians, Mr. Kerry conceded, “We know we have a lot of homework to do. We need to break down barriers in trade.”

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