Krishna to meet Clinton on Monday

From Yoshita Singh and V S Chandrasekar
New York (PTI) - With a meeting between Indian
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Barack Obama not
taking place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, a meeting is being arranged between External Affairs Minister S
M Krishna and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton here on
Monday.
"We are planning a meeting between Secretary of State
and External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Monday subject to
confirmation," Foreign Secretary of India Ranjan Mathai told
reporters Saturday.
To a question whether there was growing distrust between
India and the US in the context of a meeting not taking place
between Obama and Singh, Mathai said the Prime Minister had
arrived in New York after Obama had left and that was why a
bilateral meeting was not possible.
However, he noted that the two leaders could meet in the
upcoming G-20 Summit in France in November.

A State Department official also said that Secretary of
State Clinton is expected to meet Krishna on Monday.
"We very much hope that there will be a meeting between
Secretary Clinton and External Affairs Minister Krishna.
We are working hard to set that up possibly on Monday,"
Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia,
Robert Blake, told reporters in Washington.
During their possible meeting, the two leaders are
expected to discuss a wide range of bilateral and regional
issues including the situation in the region – Afghanistan and
Pakistan – and the next month's India-US Education summit,
which would be co-chaired by Clinton and Human Resources
Development Minister Kapil Sibal.
Earlier this week, top officials of the State Department
met Foreign Secretary Mathai.
The meeting was attended by Blake and Special US
Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Mark Grossman.
It is understood that during the meeting the officials
from the two countries discussed India's role in Afghanistan
and efforts to improve trade and commerce between India and
Pakistan.
"I think, actually, a fair amount of progress is being
made (in trade and commerce between India and Pakistan)," a
senior Obama administration Official said on condition of
anonymity.
"If you look at kind of the efforts where they started a
year or so ago, they were talking about kind of the most
minimal things. And now we've moved forward, at least a little
bit, negatives to positives," the official said.
Grossman, in his conversation with Mathai, is understood
to have praised the recent steps taken by India in this
regard.
A senior administration official said Grossman told
Mathai that the United States has been very impressed with the
amount of money, for example, and resources that the Indian
side has put into the border at Wagah Border.
"If a similar effort could be made on the Pakistani
side it would be to everyone's advantage," the official said.
Another senior administration official said that what
the Indians and the Pakistanis are trying to accomplish now is
to take what is a lot of informal trade that goes via Dubai,
making it direct trade that goes through Wagah.
"I think they're putting in place now the building
blocks to enable that to happen. So, of course, I don't want
to get ahead of their own announcements on this, but I think
their hope is that by doing so, they would be able to almost
double direct trade between their countries overnight, and
then go from there. So I think they themselves share this
optimism," the official said.