Mike Pompeo made quiet call to S Jaishankar after Galwan Valley clash: Report
United States’ Secretary of State Michael Pompeo spoke to India’s External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar at the height of border tensions between India and China following the violent face-off between Indian and Chinese soldiers in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley, The Indian Express has reported.
Twenty Indian soldiers, including an officer, were killed in the clash on June 15-16. There were casualties on the Chinese side too. However, that number is not clear. Pompeo had made the call 10 days ago and the conversation revolved around the US government’s support to India amid escalating border tensions, the report suggests.
Information regarding the call was not put out earlier due to “strategic reasons”, the report adds. The telephonic conversation happened at the when India and China were reportedly holding military and diplomatic-level talks.
Moneycontrol could not independently verify the report.
Maintaining a neutral tone, a statement issued by Washington on June 17 had said that the US government was “closely monitoring” the situation and that it supports a “peaceful resolution of the current situation”. However, Washington’s statements since then have reportedly indicated of more vocal support of India.
“We welcome India’s ban on certain mobile apps that can serve as appendages of CCP (Communist Party of China)’s surveillance state. India’s clean app approach will boost India’s sovereignty, will also boost India’s integrity and national security, as the Indian government itself has stated,” Pompeo had said after India banned over 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok.
Due to the cooperation and information-sharing between New Delhi and Washington, India now has a “good sense” of the build-up on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
“India and the US have robust defence cooperation, and this has been visible in the deployment of US platforms in the current situation along the LAC,” a person aware of these developments told the newspaper. The “platforms” refer to US-built aircraft being flown by the Indian Air Force (IAF), the report adds.
