US confirms Dy NSA raised Pannun issue with Indian officials

Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had hailed India’s decision to announce a high-level probe as “good and appropriate”, and said “we look forward to seeing the results”.

At the Global Technology Summit organised by Carnegie India in New Delhi on Monday, while responding to questions on the challenges in India-US ties, Finer said: “I think the US and India have complicated history. We have not always been wholly aligned… the most important step forward for the US and India is recognising by each side that there is much more that connects us, than what divides us… what we have demonstrated throughout the course of not just this administration, I will acknowledge this is a bipartisan effort that has gone back many administrations in the US, and frankly, many administrations in India, to bring us to the point where not only can we seize some of the important opportunities that the world presents for us, geopolitically and economically, but we can work through our differences in a constructive way without derailing that broader cooperative agenda.”

“Principal Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer led a US delegation to New Delhi on December 4 for an intersessional review of the US-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) with Indian Deputy National Security Advisor Vikram Misri. The iCET is a major milestone in the US-India partnership, which is increasingly defined by strategic security and technology cooperation,” the White House readout said.

“In addition, Mr Finer conducted bilateral and regional consultations with Ambassador Misri, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, and Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra for in-depth discussions aimed at strengthening coordination and policy alignment across the Indo-Pacific, including the wider Indian Ocean region,” it said.

It said that they also discussed the “Middle East, including the recent attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea and the importance of safeguarding freedom of commercial navigation, as well as plans for a post-conflict Gaza and a pathway toward a two-state solution”.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had said on Monday that the two Deputy NSAs “reviewed key bilateral issues and exchanged views on regional and global developments”.

The meetings came days after US federal prosecutors, on November 29, charged Nikhil Gupta, 52, an Indian citizen, of working with an unnamed Indian government employee in an alleged plot to kill Pannun.

The US prosecutors informed a Manhattan court that authorities in the Czech Republic had arrested Gupta. The Indian Express reported earlier that Gupta was moved from a high security prison facility in Prague to US jurisdiction in mid-November, days before the indictment was filed.

Describing it as a “matter of concern”, India had announced a high-level probe. Pannun is wanted by Indian probe agencies on various terror charges.

The Financial Times, citing unnamed sources, first reported last month that US authorities foiled a plot to assassinate Pannun, and issued a warning to the Indian government over concerns it was involved in the plot.