With terrorism, maritime security on agenda, India, France hold bilateral talks

Gravely concerned over growing terrorism, India and France on Friday decided to strengthen counter-terror cooperation, and asked the international community to oppose the countries which are financing, sheltering and providing safe havens to terrorists.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj held wide-ranging talks with her French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian, during which they also decided to strengthen cooperation in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), a development which comes barely days after India held quadrilateral talks with Japan, Australia and the US in Manila on the sidelines of India-ASEAN Summit.

The two ministers held discussions on key regional and international issues as well as the proposed visit of the French President to India next year.

“We expressed grave concern on growing terrorism and decided that we need to fight the evil together. We appealed to all countries to oppose those financing, sheltering and providing safe havens to terrorists,” Swaraj said at a joint press event with the French minister.

Though her statement did not name Pakistan, the remarks were in a veiled reference to it.

She said they also discussed concrete measures to expedite operations at the Jaitapur nuclear power project.

As part of the 2008 nuclear cooperation agreement between India and France, Paris is to help build …read more