PM Modi may meet US Prez Trump in June-end, discuss terrorism and H-1B visas

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington in the last week of June, with terrorism emanating from Pakistan dominating the agenda, sources said on Sunday.

In his first meeting with Trump after the developer-turned-politician took over as the President in January, Modi is also expected to discuss India's entry into the nuclear suppliers group, changes in the H-1B visa regime, defence ties between the two sides and China's increasingly aggressive stance in east and south Asia.

While top Indian officials are tight-lipped about the dates of the visit, US government sources indicated Modi would be in Washington from June 26 to June 28. The two leaders could meet again in Hanover, Germany on the sidelines of the July 7-8 G-20 meeting.

Discussions on the agenda of the Modi-Trump meeting had begun with Indian ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna extending his New Delhi visit beyond the heads of mission meeting on May 7, sources in the ministry of external affairs said.

Indication that terrorism will top the agenda came during the meetings US national security adviser HR McMaster, who was in Delhi recently, had with his Indian



counterpart Ajit Doval, foreign secretary S Jaishankar and intelligence chiefs on April 17.

Acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, too, was keen on exchange of evidence about terror groups during his India visit the same month. McCabe was then the deputy to James B Comey, who was fired by Trump on May 9.

Both McMaster and McCabe heard the Indian side on terror emanating from Af-Pak region and the growing influence of Islamic State Wilayat Khorasan module in Nangarhar in Afghanistan.

There are reports that a group of Indians, including women and children, from north Kerala has escaped to the remote eastern Afghanistan. The war-torn province made headlines last month when the US military dropped GBU-43 bomb, the country's largest non-nuclear bomb ever deployed in combat.

It is too early to predict the outcome of Modi-Trump meetings but there could be a definite movement in the extradition of 26/11 Mumbai attack accused Tahawwur Rana, a Pakistani-born Chicago businessman who helped Lashkar-e-Taiba's David Coleman Headley with his travels as he scouted sites in India for the terror strikes at the behest of his handlers in the Pakistan's powerful spy agency the ISI.