Late Saturday evening, Indian government officials said “there was no discussion of human rights in India with the US defence secretary”. “In fact, human rights and values were mentioned as shared attributes. The only mention of minorities was by the external affairs minister in the context of Afghanistan,” a high-ranking official said.
Lloyd Austin met with foreign minister S Jaishankar for a discussion on the strategic situation in the Indo-Pacific and the peace process in Afghanistan. With reference to Austin’s remarks on human rights, Indian sources said, “The secretary of defence said that as the two largest democracies in the world, human rights and values are important to us and we will lead with these values. EAM (Jaishankar) agreed and emphasised that a strong relationship between the two democracies was not only important for both countries but for the rest of the world.”