US says satisfied with India steps on assassination plot

NEW DELHI (AFP): The US ambassador to India said Thursday that the United States has been satisfied with India’s response to an alleged assassination plot on US soil and voiced confidence for future ties.

US prosecutors in November charged an Indian citizen with plotting to kill a Sikh separatist who is a US citizen and said an Indian government official was involved in the planning.

“So far, knock on wood, I would say the administration is satisfied with the accountability we have demanded on this,” Ambassador Eric Garcetti said at the Council on Foreign Relations on a return visit to the United States.

He added that protection of US citizens was a “red line for America.”

Senior officials from President Joe Biden’s administration quietly issued warnings after the plot was uncovered and India announced a committee to probe the matter.

Publicly, the Biden administration has kept pursuing the more than two-decade US embrace of India, seen by US policymakers across party lines as like-minded on many issues including concerns over a rising China.

Biden welcomed Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a state visit last year despite concerns voiced by human rights activists about rising authoritarianism.

Garcetti said that India and the United States should not be distracted by “the narcissism of small differences” and had more in common than not as the world’s two largest democracies.

“I think if it was a Facebook status,” he said of the US-India relationship, “for a long time, it was, ‘it’s complicated.’ Now we’re definitely dating.”

India’s response to the United States has been far more muted than its reaction to Canada, which earlier this month arrested three men over the killing of a Sikh separatist near Vancouver that Ottawa also linked to the Indian government.

India temporarily halted the processing of visas for Canadians and forced Canada to reduce its diplomatic presence substantially.