New Delhi: A day after US President Donald Trump condemned the killing of an Indian engineer in Kansas last month, it was the turn of the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, to slam the shooting, in which a second Indian was injured.
These developments taken together could possibly help set the stage for a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Trump later this year. Trump invited Modi to the US during a telephone call in January.
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Ryan condoled the death of Srinivas Kuchibhotla during a meeting with Indian foreign secretary S. Jaishankar in Washington late on Wednesday. Jaishankar is on a four-day visit to the US to sensitize the Trump administration on India’s concerns over possible cuts in H1B and L1 visas—popular with Indian IT professionals travelling to the US. He also met with US national security advisor H.R. McMaster.
“In our meeting, I expressed the House’s condolences on the death of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, who was senselessly murdered last week in Kansas. Our people must continue to stand together, and I look forward to working with foreign secretary Jaishankar in the years ahead,” Ryan said in a statement posted on his official website.
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Ryan’s statement came a day after Trump in an address to a joint session of the US Congress on Tuesday condemned threats against the Jewish community and the Kansas shooting. Trump’s comments came a week after the shooting and in his Tuesday speech, he did not indicate any major rethink of his anti-immigration election stance.
Speculation is rife that India conveyed to the Trump administration the need for a statement on Kuchibhotla’s killing to assuage Indian public sentiment ahead of a Trump-Modi meeting.
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India-US ties have warmed considerably in recent years with four US presidential visits since the year 2000. Modi and former US president Barack Obama met four times at the bilateral level between 2014-16 after Modi took the lead to rescript ties with the US after his election in 2014.
There are 3.1 million Americans of Indian origin in the US and many thousands of Indians travel to the US for higher education, work or to visit relatives.
