US secretary of state Mike Pompeo on Wednesday stressed the need to “stand up together for religious freedom”.
“India is the birthplace of four major world religions,” Pompeo said, delivering what was billed as an “India policy speech” at the India International Centre. “Let’s stand up together for religious freedom for all; let’s speak out strongly together in favour of those rights, for whenever we do compromise those rights, the world is worse off.”
On Sunday, New Delhi had said such issues were part of India’s internal matters.
On Wednesday, the statements by Pompeo and foreign minister S. Jaishankar made no mention of the issue. The two sides made every effort to project the differences on trade, Iran and Russia as par for the course in a relationship based on deep convergences.