Foreign Secretary leaves for U.S.

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI, AUG. 29. On the eve of the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee's visit to the United States, the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Lalit Mansingh, left tonight for two days of consultations with the Clinton administration.

Mr. Mansingh, accompanied by senior foreign office aides, will hold substantive talks with the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Mr. Thomas Pickering, and interact with other top officials in Washington.

Part of the structured engagement between the two foreign offices, Mr. Mansingh's visit will help to prepare the broad agenda for the discussions between Mr. Vajpayee and the U.S. President Mr. Bill Clinton on September 15.

The talks between senior officials will move to the political level next week, when the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh, is expected to meet the U.S. Secretary of State, Ms. Madeleine Albright, in New York on the margins of the United Nations Millennium Summit. Mr. Singh will arrive in New York ahead of the Prime Minister.

Mr. Vajpayee leaves the Capital next Tuesday for an extended trip to the U.S. His first stop will be New York, where he will join the Millennium Summit and meet a number of prime ministers and presidents on the sidelines. He will then travel to the West Coast of the U.S. for an interaction with the information technology community in the Silicon Valley, where Indian professionals have made a big impact.

Mr. Vajpayee is scheduled to arrive in Washington on September 13 for a heavy schedule of engagements including an address to the joint session of the Congress and meetings with Mr. Clinton.

There is no expectation of dramatic outcomes from Mr. Vajpayee's visit. The objective is to ``consolidate'' the positive phase in Indo-U.S. relations generated by Mr. Clinton's trip to India last March. In the last six months, there have been significant exchanges between the two governments. A full round of talks under the ``dialogue architecture'' announced during Mr. Clinton's visit has been completed. The frequency and intensity of the dialogue reflect the new comfort level between India and the U.S. and a more businesslike attitude towards bilateral relations, sources here say.

It is likely that some commercial and technological agreements will be signed during the visit. At the political level, it appears that the question of India signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) is no longer at the front and centre of the bilateral relations.

The regional situation - in particular Indo-Pakistani relations and Kashmir - is certain to figure in the official talks this week as well as those at the political level. But no major diplomatic development on this front is being visualised.

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