Delighted by Modi’s visit to Kyiv, says senior U.S. official in charge of Ukraine’s recovery

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and former U.S. Ambassador to India Richard Verma was given additional charge as the U.S.’s Special Representative for Ukraine’s Economic Recovery last week
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

Expressing “delight” at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “important visit” to Kyiv this week, a senior U.S. official, who is visiting New Delhi, said it is clear that the global community has taken a stand against Russia’s war in Ukraine.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and former U.S. Ambassador to India Richard Verma was given additional charge as the U.S.’s Special Representative for Ukraine’s Economic Recovery last week and had travelled to India and Nepal for meetings.

His comments came weeks after a series of critical remarks by the U.S. State Department over Mr. Modi’s visit to Moscow on July 9, indicating that Mr. Modi’s decision to travel to Poland and Ukraine has now been appreciated in Washington.

“I am delighted about this visit and I think it is an important visit,” Mr. Verma said, speaking at a discussion on “The United States and India: A Partnership of Progress and Promise”, held at the Delhi-based Centre For Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), where he laid out recent developments in the bilateral relationship. “What we have witnessed over the last two-and-a-half years is an attempt by Russia to destabilise the global order, to upend the post World War system,” he added, accusing Russia of annexing Ukrainian territory in contravention of international law.

“We understand India’s long relationship with Russia, and India has to make its own determination of where it wants to be on the scale,” Mr. Verma said, while praising Mr. Modi’s statement that this is not a “time for war”. “But this is a very consequential period for the defence of liberty, freedom and the rule of law,” he added, saying later that he “looked forward to the outcomes” of Mr. Modi’s Kyiv visit.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has thus far made no comment about Mr. Modi’s visit to Ukraine, that comes as the Ukrainian army has reportedly made advances into Russia’s Kursk region. The Russian Embassy in India also did not offer a response to Mr. Verma’s comments. On Monday (August 19, 2024), officials of the Ministry of External Affairs had rejected questions on whether U.S. pressure had led to Mr. Modi’s decision to visit Ukraine, saying that India’s ties with Russia and Ukraine were independent of each other and not a “zero-sum game”.

During his visit to the region, that included a stop in Kathmandu, Mr. Verma met with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar. Neither side explicitly mentioned the situation in Ukraine or a potential role for India in the conflict, and Mr. Jaishankar said in a social media post only that they “spoke about the continuing momentum in our bilateral ties, and exchanged views on certain regional and global issues”.

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In his talk, Mr. Verma covered a number of areas where Indian and U.S. ties have grown in the past few years, making a special mention of joint projects in climate change, advanced technologies, space and cancer research.

Rana extradition request

Meanwhile, in response to a question about the long-pending Indian request for the extradition of Tahawwur Hussain Rana, wanted as a co-conspirator in the 2008 Mumbai attack, a U.S. Embassy official confirmed that a U.S. court had rejected his appeal.

“We’re fortunate to have an extradition agreement with the Government of India that allows for extradition between our countries. His [Rana’s] lawyers filed an appeal that you saw was rejected by the courts,” U.S. Embassy spokesperson Chris Elms said, speaking at the same event.

He added that the “case continues to proceed in the legal system in the United States”, but didn’t furnish details over how much longer it could take for Mr. Rana, who has been in custody in a Los Angeles jail since 2020 pending the extradition hearings, to be handed over to India to face trial here.