Indian Foreign Secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon will arrive in Washington on Sunday and will be holding meetings with top Obama Administration officials on a wide range of bilateral and regional issues.
Taking the Indo-US relationship to the next level - from what was accomplished during the Bush Administration - is going to be the main focus of this first high-level Indo-US interaction after Barack Obama was sworn in as the USPresident on January 20.
Menon will be meeting with the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Under Secretary for Political Affairs William J Burns and the Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg during three days of meetings beginning on Monday.
Menon would also be meeting with Richard Holbrooke, the Special US Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan. Holbrooke was recently in New Delhi to discuss with Indian authorities its view on Afghanistan. The Obama Administration is keen to involve New Delhi in Afghanistan; given the goodwill India has generated in the country through its massive developmental efforts in the post-Taliban era.
The foreign secretary will also be meeting with the officials of the Department of Defense, the National Security Council and key Congressional leaders, including those in the House and Senate Foreign Relations Committees and members of the Congressional caucus on India. Meetings with a number of Washington-based think tanks have also been scheduled for the Foreign Secretary, which would be used as an interactive platform to brief these influential opinion makers on issues related to Indo-US relationship.
