Obama to Cut Short India Trip to Pay Call on Saudi Arabia
by Breitbart News24 Jan 2015
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will cut short
his three-day trip to India and visit Saudi Arabia to
pay respects after the death of King Abdullah,
U.S. and Indian officials said Saturday.
The schedule change, announced shortly before Obama left for
India, means the president will skip plans to see the Taj Mahal, and instead
pay a call on an influential U.S. ally in the volatile Mideast.
The king, who died Friday, was aggressive in trying to check
the spreading power of Saudi Arabia’s chief rival, Iran. Obama visited the
ailing monarch in his desert compound last March.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the president and
first lady Michelle Obama would travel to Riyadh on Tuesday and meet with new
Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud. Vice President Joe Biden was to lead
a U.S. delegation, but Earnest said the White House changed plans after
determining that Biden’s trip coincided with Obama’s departure from India.
Biden will remain in Washington.
The more substantive portions of Obama’s trip to India
appeared unlikely to change.
Obama was due to arrive Sunday for meetings with Indian
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then attend Monday’s annual Republic Day
festivities, which mark the day in 1950 that India’s constitution came into
force.
Relations between the world’s two largest democracies are
strengthening after recent tensions. Obama and Modi developed a good rapport
during the prime minister’s visit in Washington last fall.
Relations between the world’s two largest democracies are
strengthening after recent tensions. Obama and Modi developed a good rapport
during the prime minister’s visit in Washington last fall.
Modi’s invitation to Obama caught some in the U.S. off
guard.
“It took us by some surprise,” said Ben Rhodes, Obama’s
deputy national security adviser. “There’s a great affinity between the United
States and India and our people, but there’s also a history that is complicated
and that would have made it seem highly unlikely that a U.S. president would be
sitting with India’s leaders at their Republic Day ceremony.”
While in India, Obama also planned to meet with Modi and
attend an economic summit with U.S. and Indian business leaders.
Obama will be the first U.S. president to visit India twice
while in office; he also traveled there in 2010 for an economic summit.
His trip was expected to be heavy on symbolism and lighter
on substantive advances, though climate change, economics and defense ties are
on the agenda. Still, U.S. and Indian officials
appear to agree that even a symbolic show of solidarity would mark progress
after recent difficulties.
While military cooperation and U.S. defense sales have
grown, Washington has been frustrated by India’s failure to open up to more
foreign investment and to address complaints alleging intellectual property
violations. India’s liability legislation has also prevented U.S. companies
from capitalizing on a landmark civil nuclear agreement between the two
countries in 2008.
Relations hit a new low in 2013 when India’s deputy consul
general was arrested and strip-searched in New York over allegations that she
lied on visa forms to bring her maid to the U.S. while paying the woman a
pittance. The official’s treatment caused outrage in New Delhi, and India
retaliated against U.S. diplomats.
Modi’s hosting of Obama caps a year of high-profile
diplomatic maneuvers by a leader denied a U.S. visa in 2005, three years after
religious riots killed more than 1,000 Muslims in the Indian state where he was
the top elected official.
The visit ties in with Modi’s election promise that he would
turn around Asia’s third-largest economy. It also could send a message to
Pakistan and China
— India’s closest neighbors and rivals — that Modi has a powerful ally in the
United States.
The White House plans to push India on climate change,
particularly after reaching a sweeping agreement with China on limiting carbon
emissions. Accompanying Obama are several U.S. business leaders
hoping to forge new partnerships with India.
U.S. and Indian
Francisco D'Souza
is a director at the U.S.-India Business
Council, and a term trustee at the Carnegie
Mellon University.
Note: Manoj P. Singh was
a director at the U.S.-India Business
Council, and is a term trustee at the Carnegie
Mellon University.
Harold W. McGraw
III is the chairman for the U.S.-India
Business Council, a director at the U.S.-China
Business Council, and a trustee at the Carnegie
Hall.
Andrew Carnegie
was the endowed predecessor schools for the Carnegie Mellon University, the founder of Carnegie Hall, and the founder of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank).
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank), and the Atlantic Council of the United States
(think tank).
George
Soros is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations, and was the chairman for the Foundation
to Promote Open Society.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank).
Jessica Tuchman Mathews is the president of
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank), a director
at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think tank), and a 2008 Bilderberg
conference participant (think tank).
Ed Griffin’s interview with Norman
Dodd in 1982
(The investigation into the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace uncovered the plans for population
control by involving the United
States in war)
Daniel
Vasella is a trustee at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(think tank), and a governing board member for the Indian School of Business.
Jon M. Huntsman
Jr. is a trustee at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(think tank), and was the ambassador to China for the Barack Obama
administration.
J.
Stapleton Roy is a trustee at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace (think tank), an executive board member for the United States-China Policy Foundation, a director at the National Committee on United States-China
Relations, and was the U.S. ambassador for China.
Chas. W. Freeman
Jr. is a trustee at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(think tank), a director at the Atlantic
Council of the United States (think tank), was the National Intelligence
Council chairman nominee for the Barack
Obama administration, a co-chairman for the United States-China Policy Foundation, a U.S. ambassador for Saudi Arabia, and the president of the Middle East Policy Council.
Abdallah
Bin Abd Al-Aziz Al Saud was the king of Saudi Arabia, and a benefactor for the Middle East Policy Council.
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