Washington: Two senior US officials are headed to India to participate in the second US-India-Afghanistan Trilateral Dialogue focusing on cooperation among the three nations after the planned drawdown of US forces from Afghanistan in 2014. Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake and Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Dan Feldman will lead the US delegation at the New Delhi meeting, the State Department announced Friday.
The New Delhi meeting follows the inaugural trilateral consultations held at the Afghan mission in New York City September 25. "The United States, India and Afghanistan all share a common vision for a strong, peaceful, and prosperous region and have pledged to work together on common challenges and opportunities including combating violent extremism, strengthening cultural exchanges and increasing regional trade and economic integration," the State Department said.
"The trilateral reflects our mutual commitments to transparency and coordination as Afghanistan continues with it ongoing security, economic and political transitions," it added. Meeting in a New York a week after the first trilateral dialogue, then External Affairs Minister SM Krishna and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had assessed it "positively and hoped to take forward their cooperation on that front."
In their review of the trilateral dialogue the two had discussed among other things regional economic integration projects including the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline.
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