US NSA Jake Sullivan meets Jaishankar in Delhi as Biden administration prepares to hand over charge to Trump

Sharing a post on X, Jaishankar wrote, “Delighted to meet US NSA @JakeSullivan46 in New Delhi today morning.”

“Continued our ongoing discussions on deepening bilateral, regional and global cooperation. Valued the openness of our conversations in the last four years. Appreciated his personal contribution to forging a closer and stronger India-US partnership,” he said.

The US had said that Sullivan is visiting India for a “capstone meeting” with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. “That will span a range of issues across the breadth of our partnership with India, from space, defense, strategic technology cooperation, all the way also to shared security priorities in the Indo-Pacific and beyond,” White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby had said.

“Sullivan is also visiting the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, where he will be able to meet with young Indian entrepreneurs and give a speech outlining the significant steps that the United States and India have taken together to strengthen our innovation alliance under the US-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, otherwise known as iCET,” Kirby had said, adding, “This will be Sullivan’s final trip to the Indo-Pacific region as National Security Advisor.”

Sullivan has been one of the most influential and key officials in the outgoing US administration, who played a critical role in managing the conflicts across the world — the Russia-Ukraine war, Israel’s war in Gaza and tensions with Iran, and the growing assertiveness of China.

In the last week of December, Jaishankar met Sullivan in the US while on a visit to Washington DC and also his possible successor US Congressman Michael Waltz, US President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for national security advisor. This was the first high-level contact with the incoming Trump administration.

Part of Sullivan’s visit is to ring-fence iCET, one of the key initiatives launched by the Biden administration that has got Doval and Sullivan to lead the conversation cutting across tech and strategic domains, from AI to quantum computing, semiconductors to space.

With Beijing making inroads and leaps in these sectors at a rapid pace, India would want the US to further strengthen this initiative – New Delhi wants to be part of the whole supply-chain ecosystem.

Sources said the US NSA’s visit is an important gesture from the Biden team towards New Delhi about the bipartisan nature of the partnership.

This also comes at a time when India is facing allegations of an assassination plot against pro-Khalistan separatist figures in the US and Canada — where US federal prosecutors have named and identified an Indian intelligence official as part of the plot. Sullivan has been holding conversations from the American side on this issue, and the US government has demanded accountability from New Delhi on the matter. India has set up an inquiry committee, which is investigating the inputs shared by US agencies, and has suspended the intelligence official.