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Shannon Stapleton / AFP - Getty Images
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton waves upon her arrival at the airport in Kolkata, India on Sunday.
KOLKATA, India - The United States will seek assurances that India will reduce its purchases of oil from sanctions-hit Iran during a visit by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the South Asian giant this week, a senior U.S. official said on Sunday.
Clinton started a three-day trip to India on Sunday that will coincide with a visit by a large Iranian trade delegation, as India walks a tightrope of strengthening ties with ally the United States and sating its fast-growing energy needs.
She arrived in India from a 24-hour visit to Bangladesh, where NBC News reported that she visited the US Embassy in Dhaka to thank worker and expressed “hurt” at a local opinion poll that showed most people believe the U.S. is anti Muslim.
During her visit, Clinton will also make the case for the country to open its supermarket sector to foreign chains such as U.S. giant Wal-Mart Stores - a major economic reform that has stalled under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government.
India has publicly rejected Western sanctions but has pushed refiners to cut imports of oil from Iran by 15-20 percent - enough, it hopes, to win a waiver from Washington.
The United States in March granted exemptions to Japan and 10 European Union nations from its sanctions, which are aimed at pressuring Iran to end its nuclear programme. India and China, Iran's biggest buyers of crude, remain on a list at risk if they do not cut oil imports "substantially".
"Our assessment is India is making good progress but we really need to receive assurances that they are going to continue to make good progress," a senior U.S. official, travelling with Clinton, told reporters.
The 56-member trade delegation, led by the president of Iran's chamber of commerce, will also arrive on Sunday for another round of talks on how the two can trade via a rupee mechanism set up to skirt sanctions. A previous trade mission of Indian businesses to Iran in March had proved unproductive.
"These are not going to be strategic trades of any kind," the U.S. official said. "So I don't think that we are too concerned about this, but we'll obviously want to hear from the government what they see as the focus of this trade delegation."
Shannon Stapleton / AFP - Getty Images
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks to students at the Dhaka International School in Dhaka, Sunday.
Relations between the United States and India have blossomed in recent years, especially during the presidency of George W. Bush, which signed a landmark civilian nuclear pact with India. But irritants, especially over trade and investment barriers, have raised temperatures of late.
Clinton arrives in India leaving behind her a stormy visit to China, which saw Beijing and Washington tussle over the fate of a blind Chinese human rights activist who had escaped 19 months of house arrest and fled to the U.S. embassy.
From Kolkata, Clinton will travel to New Delhi on Monday to meet Singh. Afghanistan and India's controversial proposals on retroactive taxation are likely talking points, Indian sources told Reuters last week.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
She should fire her hair stylist!
You don't usually see millions of F150's or Chevy Suburbans driving around India. I would think they would point a finger back at us even though we guzzle other countries oil........
The auto, what a poor invention..I just as soon take a train. Oh wait we have none promised..
When are we going to start to mind our own business and leave other countries alone? The things that we are doing for Israel, it's unbelievable. What if India says to stop ALL aid to Israel, would the US accept that? Hey Clinton, just shut your trap and come back home and stop wasting taxpayer money.
I'm hoping India is civil enough to simply tell the US to get bent.
Nothing helps her! Have a good look, there is nothing to work with.
I am really happy you don't run the world!
I think that might help,Queen Elizabeth's army is here at Boeing because of crimes against humanity Bush Adm. and Bush ,Woody and Trump are still Violating the High international Court orders RE my family (Wright Brothers close blood relatives-we are all UN Peacekeepers/US GOV.agents) Businesses and removal of spy equips and devices-and they tried to steal Fowler Foster oil and gas ,my mother held hostage by Mexican mafia,my 15 yr old daughter by a terrorist that worked with Howard k sterns (Russian gypsy Jew bride and sex slavery rings),and I am living in my UN Vehicle -illegal police intimidation's and framing's everywhere and Bush has taught the ordinary Peace officers to ignore court rulings and OFFICIAL orders(US JUSTICE DEPT -GPS and OTHER HIGH INTEL.SATELLITE,spy equip..) and NASA had to step in because unbelievably ordinary police tried to threaten FBI the way they did UN-
When are we going to get over this nonesese of telling other countries what to do.
Knowing them, they'll probably do something stupid like divert some U.S. oil to India to make up for the shortfall, further driving prices up at the pump for American taxpayers.
Obama is looking more like Bush, day after day.
Indians are living the "simple life" as it is. You can see a family of four Indians on one scooter, for example. Many WALK or take the bus. The average American uses 30 times more resources than the average Indian. However, when you have more than one billion, you need energy to power trains, buses, rickshaws, scooters, etc. Unless we Americans are willing to cut our energy use to help India, how can you expect Indians to manage. After all, Red China is trying to monopolize all of the world's energy resources and oil fields. India has to get oil where it can. Is the US willing to ship India oil from Alaska?
I hope the Indian government is smart enough NOT to let Walmart in..... Walmart and China, Inc, will do to Indian small business what they did to American small business.......Walmart is just E###.
Why would I care about helping Indians "manage".
Indians first need to first stop reproducing & breeding like rabbits contributing to global overpopulation before I'm willing to help "manage".
If the US existed as long as India then I would say you would be plagued by over population as well.
Yeah well I think we got a couple of thousand years before we have to worry about that, pal.
lol...
India to the US,,, Mind your own business.
How about the US building 40 NEW state of the art COAL plants to produce electricity.
Google , Clean COAL Tech.,,,,,,, NO more smoke OR F-in ARAB OIL
Why do I get the sense that many countries are tiring of the US and its overbearing demands? Soon enough many will tell the US to phuck off and align with China, who will make less demands and provide a better deal.
Why not 40 new nuclear power plants? They are less polluting and produce a significant amount more power than a coal fired power plant!
The United States will seek assurances that India will reduce its purchases of oil from sanctions-hit Iran
Hillary Clinton is acting like the Principal of the High School around the globe: Telling the students that partying and having fun at late hours is bad for you. Go back and think about how seriously the students really took the advise of the Principal.
Exactly....
Atlas, these countries already have told the U.S. to do just that. For the most part the U.S. should stay out of other countries business and take care of its own business and that means not giving foreign aid and unrestricted trade. I'm seeing more and more really poor products imported from India and we beg them to open their markets to us. China steps all over the U.S. with regard to unfair trade, and we go to the mat with them over a dissident and nothing is done about the trade practices.
Hillary's big mistake is trying to "tell" India and others to cut back. We have no business telling anybody to cut oil production. Hillarious Clinton needs to comprehend that she would most likely accomplish a lot mot by just asking politely on things like this! All she will wind up doing do is piss India and others off with her usual petulant and demanding attitude! I sure hope she is not thinking about a run in 2012. The thought of her in the Oval Office scares me more than Obama in there again!
How about building 40 Thorium Breeder Reactors - half the cost of the coal plants with a much quicker ROI. It can be built in 12-18 months, instead of 7 years, so the ROI is much better. It also doesn't have any of the problems of traditional nuclear. It is very safe and it can't meltdown or be weaponized.
I see this whole Iran non-sense as another way to please the Saudi masters of universe who are trying to keep oil prices high when the world is in recession. Why the hell the gas isn't under 2 dollars when the economy has been in deep doo doo since 2008?
Only because the Saudi's are successful in convincing the US that every other country in Middle East is a security threat - of course other than Saudi Arabia. Guess what - where did the 911 hijackers come from? Go figure.
Cut back on Iran oil or we will bomb you on false pretenses. The US really needs to shut the @!$%# up.
yeah but that's still kind of an, uhhh, "pipe" dream still, isn't it?
Hm, she really is not with the program at all. Facts are facts, Clinton. By the way, go home and don't try to tell people what to do with their energy policies.
India produces her own oil too, but you see the Russians are in charge. India will take Iranian oil and will tell the US to mind our own business as she has done countless times in the last decade. They pay over a dollar a litre for Gas. They also hope to get natural gas thru the pipeline that is in construction from you guessed it Iran. It will do away with Cooking gas cylinders, and many larger cities plan to have natural gas the way we do in the US.
Is it me or is Hilary getting more and more unattractive!!!!
It's not just you, Dang thats gotta stank!
Hillary is 64 years old with an extremely demanding career. All things considered, I think she looks nice. I commend her for allowing herself to age naturally. Society has entirely lost its way with its unrealistic expectations of how women "should" look.
Get Real, She is just flat UGLY!!
I agree, human beings are allowed to get old for crying out loud. Women weren't made for your aesthetic appeasement.
Maybe so but Ugly is Ugly. I think bill should get out those cigars and have a little fun again.
Baldman and ChickenSquared are right. Hillary is not running to be the beauty queen. She is trying to do a job.
However - i must say she is not in any position to "TELL" India what to do.
i saw her on the pres. state of the union. man, she looked tired.
Calista is the one that looks SCARY !!!!!
btw; Hillary isn't out there doing this all on her own, it's the administrations policy and anything that pressures Iran is a good thing. Iran with a nuke is a big deal to India as well !!!
Bill Clinton always liked those ugly women. I saw this woman in Arkansas in 1976 and she was just as ugly, just younger.
Yes they are.
lol...
Btw, Chicken Squared, I'm pretty sure she is not "aging naturally". Those are cheek implants for example - compare them to photos in earlier years - and they are most likely not the first set of them.
Hey India! Are you with us or NO.
We might want to start re-thinking that "you're either with us or against us mentality". History isn't going to be kind to the USA of the first part of the 21st. century. The future and the past last for a very long time, decisions in the now will be remembered later.
johnnyt,
You worry too much. Take what enjoyment you may in having lived in the greatest country on the planet when they were at the height of their power. The future and the past do last for a very long time, but in two hundred years the world will discuss the U.S. role in World War II about the same way they discuss the British role in the Napoleonic Wars now.
Seeing as how we export hundreds of thousands of our jobs to India you would think that we have a say so in what they do ..other wise we tell our companies not to manufacture or use any of India's outsourced employes..then maby they would come around ...hmmm jobs or Iranian Oil...yes we do have a reason to ask for their assistance...other wise we should just leave them poor and third world again..if that's what they want.
It is not so simple. Indians are living the "simple life" as it is. The average American consumes 30 times more resources than the average Indian. You can see a family of four Indians on one scooter. When you have one billion persons, you need energy. It is that simple. You need energy to power buses, trains, scooters, rickshaws, etc.
Just think with all that outsourcing that is going on how much of our private information (SSN's banking records, etc) has or can be compromised. What insurance do we have that out info is safe.
Is there any "trojan horses" planted in the software that was generated by the H1'bs and used by us every day
Indians are some of the nicest and most decent folks in the world. I think you are a chinese troll.
A country of 300 million telling a country of over 1 billion what to do. Where are your goddamn manners b*tch!?
Another moment of clarity? China can burn millions of tons of coal with no pollution controls and play parent to North Korea and she seems thinks to we aught to tell India what gas station to go to.
Here's some clarity: China is bankrolling the stimulus package. India is providing tech support and staffing 711's. Get the picture?
Get ready all you big strong men Uncle Sam needs your help again, got himself in a terrible jam way down yonder in Iran. Hey isn't it nice that the fish song is interchangeable with our foreign policy? Again can't keep our noses out of other countries concerns, we have to be the hero. 16 trillion in debt, social security and medicare are broke, big time lack of public service workers union bleeding us white. And this is what the crowd is worried about in DC, a bunch of knuckheads that couldn't develope a picture let along an A-bomb. But the dopes in this country will eat it up, anything to take our little mind off the real A-bomb that is about to go off, the debt bomb!
Agree with you on some of your points - but Social Security & Medicare aren't broke - they are owed $5 Trillion of that $16 Trillion debt!
Don, your right, SS and Medicare are not broke and neither is the country. However that $5 trillion goes on top of the $16 making it $21.
But the repulicons insist that less advantaged of our citizens pay down the debt instead of the rich guys.
"Do as I say, not as I do". I think our government (after the media) is the biggest bunch of hypocrites.
If they don't play, we will bring our call centers back home.
Considering India's close proximity to Iran, the potential for nuclear affects being felt in India is great. It makes sense for India to be concerned about Iran's nuclear weapons program, moreso than the U.S. However, India's close proximity to Iran also makes cheap oil hard to resist regardless of any concern over Iran's nuke program.
The Indian government is one of the most corrupt in the world. We shouldn't trust them.
India, please do not sell yourselves out and allow Walmart within your borders.
India to America and Obama. Your problem, not ours.
The American government is one of the most corrupt in the world!
Fine, let Iran make bombs, huh ?
Then you and your ilk would cry that Obama is letting it happen !!!
Another example of how our foreign policy just doesn't align itself with the American people. I'm not sure what the view is from those ivory towers, but from here I can't see why the United States government (under every administration) doesn't just let he world be. Stop picking winners and loser based on elusive American interests. In the not-too-distant future, the world will not need to play the games of the US. What then?
We tried "letting the world be" between 1920 and 1939. The result was Adolf Hitler.
Adolph Hitler was a direct cause for us getting involved where we didn't need to be, and that was WW I thank you. Our beloved Pres Wilson got us in the war, that had nothing to do with American interests, so he could make the world safe for "democracy". Fat chance. If we would have let the European Powers go at it, the worst that would have happened was a Central Powers victory, meaning no Nazis or Commies. That @!$%# King George V didn't lift a finger to help Nicholas II out, but Kaiser Bill would not have stood there and watch his cousin and his family get killed. A Central Powers victory would have meant no radical socialism, a free Ukraine, a still secular Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, no crazy fundamentalists in charge, and probably a rather prosperpous Europe. Oh, but the United States was such a moral force for good, and just had to get involved to spread democracy now, or was it to just make the bankers ever so more rich, including the munitions folks?
Could not agree more. This is getting absurd and from where I sit (still in the USA) it looks almost delusional.
india and china will not cut back their imports, what the hell is america thinking about, this is the time to buy oil from iran, bet they get it for a song and dance also, freakin united states, what a whimp of a country it has become. this points to the waivers, are we the ones that have to give up oil later to make it up to china and india, of course, we are the suckers in this one, thats why you will see 5.00 bucks a gal. obama is just teasing us right now for the vote folks, don't trust this SOB>
Catch that part about building a walmart,our evil plan has been exposed,we will take over the world using walmart to put every other place out of business.bwahhahhahahah,they can hire Ashton kutcher do the tv ads.
Hillary never was hot,but she has aged wow,my thoughts on why politician's age so much.. all that lying,cheatin,screwing us over an worrying of getting caught,they cant sleep anymore,or they lie awake all night thinking of new ways to screw us.lack up sleep speeds up ageing
Yeah- So that Walmart can bribe another country and avoid U.S. taxes. And actually, if we want to impose sanctions, make them watch all of the Two and a Half Men shows that include Ashton Kutcher. Now that would get their attention. Or maybe, make them watch it and grant him citizenship!
Hillary & Geithner Judea Christians prostrated in front of the CHINESE and to compensate that humiliating body bending exercise will defaecate on cheap pseudo seculario Judea Christian Islam governed cheap trash slavery minded Indians being totally corrupt and infighting will accept anything as these are INDIANS AS ALWAYS INDIANS-CORRUPT OF ALL NATIONS. WALL MART will destroy all Indian Retailers as they have done to all others- The Corruption Vulture of all where vultures get bad names as vultures only live on to remove dead and debris while Jews live on live healthy people. These are Hillary Clintons in laws. What a world!
Man, you really need to chill out before you stroke out!! Life can't really be as bad as you seem to think it is!!
I guess this is another up yours heading this way!
If only the US wouldn't have let Walmart in. Remember, they reopened factories during one of their first campaigns. Thye were proud to have "Made in the U.S.A." labels, that was their first rise to American buyers.
when in the hell did the u s become the worlds ruler? i guess i missed that on, and hey hillery seems the goverment thinks they can just tell every on what to do, to bad they dont pay as much attention to our problems as they do every one elses, and hey hillary hears a hint get you hair cut short again you look like your about a 100 years old
We have to try to get India to cut back on Iranian oil as China would simply tell us to mind out own business. Good advice.
The years have been very unkind to Hilary.
if you worked for the US gov and had to lie to everyone for 4 years youd look bad too.
Look at that picture of her. I'm sure they will be scared into submission.
The US and Iran are both evil. They should keep their rivalry to themselves and not expect other countries to take sides. The US has no right to interfere in India-Iran bilateral ties. If I were the Indian PM, I would tell Mrs. Clinton to f#%k off and mind her own business.
I would agree except for the fact that we probably provide India with all sorts of financial aid. I'd be curious about that. If we do, then maybe we have a leg to stand on. If we don't, let's print some more greenbacks and give them some. Then we'll have some leverage.
India does not get aid.
Me to the U.S.- cut back on everything made in India.
Yea, you would rather have stuff made by Red China---which has a totalitarian , brutal government.
Dude, the Chinese govt is tame compared to ours. Did you know you have less restrictions in China in starting your own business than here in the States? Yeah they have slave labor, making criminals work for virtually free, but what the hey, we do that here in a way, and we have more prisoners.
they will not stop until they have started ww3. They want turmoil. Just look at the US working with Al Quida in Syria and Libya but back home they are the enemy. It's all propaganda and political agenda and they DON'T care about you or your family.
And who are we to tell the whole world what it should and should not do!? And why do we have to keep antagonizing Iran? We seem to have turned into the warmongers of the world rather than the peacemakers. Let's find some measure of security with the countries we keep p>>>ing off, then maybe we can build a better world. Remember the old adage..."you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?" This is exactly why we can't get over Castro and Cuba, he wouldn't give in like the mouse that roared. Although, I don't defend most policies of these Islamic and/or fascist regimes, I can't help but have a little admiration for those willing to stand up to the Goliath we have become. Certainly we need to be attuned to what is going on and always vigilant, however, this reactionary crap needs to stop. Seems we need to pay more attention to our own problems, doesn't it? It all seems like diversionary tactics to me!
ooooh now we are into black mailing other countries if they dont do what we want them to not only is the prez selling us out to other countries like china.