Washington, June 26:
The US State Department today designated Syed Salahuddin, the head of Kashmiri militant group Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, as a specially designated global terrorist.
The move comes just hours before the first meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump at the White House.
As a consequence of this designation, US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with Salahuddin and all of Salahuddin’s property and interests in property subject to United States jurisdiction are blocked.
As a senior leader of Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), the State Department said in September, 2016, Salahuddin, also known as Syed Mohammed Yusuf Shah, vowed to block any peaceful resolution to the Kashmir conflict, threatened to train more Kashmiri suicide bombers, and vowed to turn the Kashmir valley “into a graveyard for Indian forces”.
“Under Salahuddin’s tenure as senior HM leader, HM has claimed responsibility for several attacks, including the April 2014 explosives attack in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, which injured 17 people,” the State Department said.
Following the designation of Salahuddin as the global terrorist, the State Department in a notification said he has committed, or poses a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism.
Designations of terrorist individuals and groups expose and isolate organizations and individuals, and result in denial of access to the US financial system.
Moreover, designations can assist or complement the law enforcement actions of other nations, it said.
India welcomed the US’ move.
“India welcomes this notification. It underlines also quite strongly that both India and the US face threat of terrorism,” Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Gopal Baglay said.
Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson today called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of his first meeting with President Donald Trump and discussed ways to further boost the Indo-US strategic ties.
Mattis met Modi amid reports that America will sell 22 Guardian drones to India to bolster its surveillance and intelligence gathering capabilities.
The separate meetings between Mattis as well as Tillerson and Prime Minister Modi came ahead of the latter’s maiden meeting with President Trump at the White House.
The meetings took place at the Hotel Willard Intercontinental, where the Indian prime minister is staying.
Senior Indian officials, including National Security Advisor Ajit Doval were present during the meetings.
“Preparing the ground for the meeting between the leaders. Mr. Rex W. Tillerson, Secretary of State calls on PM,” External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted on the meeting with the top US diplomat.
While the deal on the 22 Guardian worth between USD two to three billion has not been formally announced, it is considered to be a “game changer” for the US-India relations as it operationalises the status of “major defence partner”.
The designation of India being a “major defence partner” was decided by the previous Obama Administration, and formally approved by the Congress.
According to General Atomics, the Predator Guardian UAV, a variant of the Predator B, can be used for wide-area, long- endurance maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump will host his “true friend” Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House today for their first meeting as they look to strike a personal rapport and discuss a range of “strategic issues” of common interest, including trade and counter-terrorism.
Modi and Trump would spend several hours together in various settings including one-on-one and delegation-level meetings, a reception and a working dinner.
“Look forward to welcoming India’s PM Modi to @WhiteHouse on Monday. Important strategic issues to discuss with a true friend!,” Trump had posted yesterday on his official (@POTUS) Twitter handle.
Modi, in his reply to Trump, thanked him for the “warm personal welcome” and said he was “greatly” looking forward to the meeting and discussions.
The working dinner that Trump is hosting for Modi is the first of its kind under the current US administration.
“During the meeting, the President and the Prime Minister will discuss ongoing cooperation, including counter-terrorism, defence partnership in the Indo-Pacific region, global cooperation, burden-sharing, trade, law enforcement, and energy,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had said.
Indian Ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna said the first face-to-face meeting between Prime Minister Modi and President Trump will give them an opportunity to look at the entire gamut of Indo-US engagement and to exchange views on issues of global interest.
Prime Minister Modi, in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, said that the logic of the Indo-US strategic ties is “incontrovertible” and the two countries have an overriding interest in securing the world from terrorism, radical ideologies and non-traditional security threats.
In an uncertain global economic landscape, India and the US stand as mutually reinforcing engines of growth and innovation, he said.
He recalled his visit to Washington last June and his address to a joint session of the US Congress, where he said that the relationship between India and America had overcome the “hesitations of history”.
“A year later, I return to the US confident in the growing convergence between our two nations,” he said.
“This confidence stems from the strength of our shared values and the stability of our systems. Our people and institutions have steadfastly viewed democratic change as an instrument for renewal and resurgence,” he said.
Modi said the confidence in each other’s political values and a strong belief in each other’s prosperity has led to greater engagements between the two countries.
“The logic of our strategic relationship is incontrovertible,” Modi said while noting that defence was an area of mutually beneficial cooperation.
On the eve of Modi’s US visit, the Trump administration had dismissed reports that it has been ignoring India, saying President Trump realises that the country has been a “force for good” in the world and ties with it were important.
“I think that it would be wrong to say that this administration has been ignoring or not focused on India,” a senior administration official had said.
“I think that the US really appreciates India, and I think that President Trump realises that India has been a force for good in the world and that it’s a relationship that’s important. And I think that will come through in the visit on Monday,” the official said.
“Yes, this will be the first opportunity for them to sit down and have a conversation, but I think that this is still fairly early on in the administration,” the official said.
On whether the contentious H-1B visa issue would come up for discussion during the meeting, a senior administration official said it was unlikely to be raised from the US side but if raised by the Indian side, the Americans were ready for it.
Meanwhile, Modi said today that India has succeeded in convincing the world about the “face of terrorism” and hence not a single nation questioned the country’s major decision to conduct surgical strikes against terrorist launchpads on Pakistani soil.
“When we talked of terrorism 20 years back, many in the world said it was a law and order problem and didn’t understand it. Now terrorists have explained terrorism to them so we don’t have to,” Modi said, referring to the increasing number of deadly terrorist attacks around the globe.
Addressing the nearly 600 Indian-Americans at a reception organised for him in Virginia, a suburb of Washington DC, he said the Indian Army’s surgical strikes against terror training camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) on September 29 demonstrated that India can defend its sovereignty and ensure its security whenever required.
The surgical strikes were launched as a response to an attack by Pakistan-based terrorists on an Indian Army base in Kashmir’s Uri in which 19 Indian soldiers lost their lives.
“When India carried out the surgical strikes, the world realised our strength and saw that while we exercise restraint, when the need arises, India can also show its strength and might in dealing with terror and protecting itself,” he said to thunderous applause from the audience.
The prime minister said the world could have put India in the dock for launching the strikes. “But for the first time, not one nation in the world raised a single question, about India’s major step to conduct the surgical strikes against terror camps on Pakistani soil.”
“It is a different matter for those who had to suffer due to the surgical strikes,” he said, taking a jibe at Pakistan.
India has been successful in convincing the world about the “face of terrorism” and that it was “destroying peace and normal life”, Modi said ahead of his first meeting with US President Donald Trump, who had reportedly offered to mediate between India and Pakistan on the Kashmir issue drawing sharp reactions from New Delhi.
India has maintained that the Kashmir issue between Islamabad and New Delhi should be resolved bilaterally, without the interference from any third party.
Modi had some choice barbs for China, which of late has appeared to overcome its differences with the Trump administration over trade disputes and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. Trump had previously called Beijing a “currency manipulator” and threatened to launch a trade war with the communist giant.
The Prime Minister said India does not believe in disturbing the global order to achieve its goals. “This is India’s tradition and culture,” he underlined, apparently referring to China’s growing assertiveness in the resource- rich South China Sea, where Beijing has territorial disputes with its neighbours Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
“We are bound by international law because that is our character and nature. For us the concept of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ – the world is one family – are not just words. This is our nature and character,” he said. (PTI)
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