India to sign extradition treaty with the US

To further strengthen co-operation between India and the United States in fighting terrorism, Minister of State for External Affairs Salim Sherwani will sign an extradition treaty on his three-day official visit to Washington.

An external affairs ministry spokesman said the treaty ''which reflects the current thinking of the law enforcing agencies'' would be signed with US Deputy Secretary Strobe Talbott on June 25.

India had been negotiating the treaty for the last two years. The two countries have co-operated before in checking terrorism, but the policy was based on the one ''inherited from the British period,'' the spokesman said.

However, the co-operation has been ''surprisingly good,'' and the US had extradited a Punjab militant and wife (who had kidnapped former Union minister Ram Niwas Mirdha's son) on Indian request.

Sherwani, who is already in the US on a private visit, will begin his official tour on Monday, June 23. Foreign Secretary-designate K Raghunath and Joint Secretary (America) Alok Rasad will assist the minister.

This will be the first high-level contact between the I K Gujral government and the US administration.

Sherwani will meet, among others, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Assistant Secretary for South Asia Thomas Pickering and the chairmen of the Senate subcommittee on South Asia and the House committee on international relations.