Biden will raise Kashmir issue with India if elected: Blinken, his foreign policy advisor

Joe Biden, the Democrat presidential nominee in the USA, will raise the issue of Kashmir with India and would also convey its concerns on Citizenship Amendment Act if he is elected president, says the Biden campaign’s foreign policy adviser, Antony John Blinken.

Blinken said has been tasked with composing the foreign policy of the Biden campaign in a recent afternoon discussion on American foreign policy at the Hudson Institute, Washington.

Blinken is a former deputy national security adviser and deputy secretary of state.

Walter Russel Mead, who is a moderator famous US Academic, noted that Blinken’s views have become increasingly significant because former vice president Joe Biden’s victory in the November election has moved from “a possibility to a likelihood”.

Mead was the one who raised the matter of Kashmir in the conversation, pointing out that India had “some human rights and democracy issues, particularly with Muslims, in Kashmir and elsewhere”.

“We have challenges now and real concerns, for example, about some of the actions the Indian government has taken, particularly in cracking down on freedom of movement and freedom of speech in Kashmir, and about some of the laws on citizenship,” said Blinken in response to Mead’s statement.

Joe Biden will raise the issue of Kashmir with India and would also convey its concerns on CAA if he is elected president, says the Biden campaign’s foreign policy adviserhttps://t.co/4nLjiHQS4p

— Amiet R. Kashyap (@Amitraaz) July 13, 2020

Blinken also revealed that concerns on recent Indian law (Citizenship Amendment Act) will also be conveyed to Delhi.

“You are always better in engaging with a partner, and with a vitally important one like India, when you can speak frankly and directly about areas where you have differences, even as you are working to build greater cooperation,” he further added.

He said that the Biden administration’s approach is such while discussing Kashmir and other issues with India because “we have seen evidence that it works”.

Mead noted that while India was a democracy, “it has somewhat a different view of what that might mean than we do”.

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