00:00Minister Jaishankar, welcome back to Washington DC and thank you so much for talking to A&I.
00:05If we talk about your visit here in DC, lots of nuts and bolts.
00:10Give us some details about what your meetings look like here.
00:14Well, the main reason I came was that there was a critical minerals ministering
00:20which was convened by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
00:23There were a number of countries, I think it was a lot, 50 odd countries which rushed out.
00:28So that meeting took place today, in fact it's still going on, I took a break from that.
00:35And that was the principal reason, there was a very good discussion.
00:39Critical minerals is a very important subject.
00:43The US has been a partner for some years.
00:47Today they launched a new initiative called FORGE which we have supported.
00:52It's a kind of successor to the Mineral Security Partnership.
00:55So, I think overall, you know, to me it was a good meeting, very productive, very outcome-oriented, very business-like.
01:07And that was the core reason I came.
01:11But obviously if you're coming to Washington, you do a lot of other things.
01:14So, yesterday I did my bilaterals with Secretary Rubio.
01:19I also had a meeting with the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bassett.
01:23And today, because a number of other foreign ministers are here, there were a whole lot of, you know, pull asides.
01:29So, you stand there like you and I are standing and sort of catch up with the relationship.
01:35So, it's been a very useful two days.
01:36Thank you very much.
Comments