India committed to security of foreign diplomatic personnel

BANGALORE: India is committed to ensuring security of foreign diplomatic personnel and establishments in the country, Indian Ambassador to the U.S. Nirupama Rao said here today.

Her statement comes in the wake of the killing of US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other embassy staff in Benghazi in Libya by a mob, angered by a movie deemed offensive to Islam.

"India is committed to ensuring security of foreign diplomatic personnel and establishments in the country. The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi is in close touch with the central government and ministry of external affairs. We have assured them of providing security to their personnel and establishments," she told reporters here.

Rao said India has taken up the matter of reduction in numbers of L1 visas with the US and hoped this situation would not continue to prevail. "I hope the situation will ease. Our efforts are continuing in this direction," she added.

To a question on cooperation in area of homeland security, she said there is a great deal of cooperation and sharing of information between the two countries on the issue. "We face threat from terrorism and have shared commitment to counter the forces of terrorism. We are working together in this direction," she said.

Rao said both India and US have initiated ministerial level talks over homeland security. "There is enormous scope for strengthening relations further to deal with terrorism," she added.

On the new reforms initiated by the union government, Rao said India hopes that investments from US would pick up.

In the wake of trade with US touching 100 billion US dollars last year, US is India's a very important investment, trade and business, Rao said.

"We have a great deal of investments that have come in from the US. We have a great deal of investments from Indian companies in the US.So this is a two-way bridge that functions between the two countries. So I would like to see obviously much more investments coming in from the US. I am sure that the recent reforms that we have announced will catalyse this process further," she said.