US diplomat Blinken likely to travel to India in March

Washington, Jan 29: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be coming to India in early March and the details of his travel are being worked out, ANI reported citing sources familiar with the deliberations.

The State Department is planning to have Blinken's meeting in New Delhi which would be a run-up to President Joe Biden's meeting with Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) leaders, an official told the news agency.

"Secretary Blinken will be meeting his Indian counterpart and other officials to lay the groundwork for the upcoming Quad leaders summit in May 2023," the source added. It will be the third annual leaders' summit of Quad members India, Australia, Japan and the US. Tokyo played host to the last summit in May 2022.

"The summit is expected to be held in Sydney and for now, most likely all four leaders will be present in person for the summit. President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will travel to Sydney to meet Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to further cement the Quad cooperation," another person familiar with the developments told ANI. Secretary Blinken will be taking part in the Raisina Dialogue, a multilateral conference held in New Delhi on March 2-4.

Blinken is expected to address the Raisina dialogue, a conference held annually on geopolitics and geo-economics that the Observer Research Foundation, an independent think tank, in collaboration with the Ministry of External Affairs of India hosts.

In November 2022, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines of the ASEAN-India summit in Cambodia.

Jaishankar and Blinken discussed the conflict in Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific region and bilateral ties between India and US.

On the other hand, Blinken is likely to travel to China in early February for continued discussions related to consequential relationships, but there is no formal statement on it yet.

With inputs from ANI