US decision on Paris agreement hasn't altered ties: Sushma Swaraj

NEW DELHI: India had been engaged in preserving the environment for 5,000 years and this has been part of the country’s tradition, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj emphasised on Monday even as she dismissed US President Donald Trump’s charges that the country signed the Paris pact to get “billions and billions” of dollars from developed nations.

“What Trump said is not the reality,” Swaraj said. “We have signed the Paris accord not under any pressure nor for any money...to say we did it for money, I totally reject that. India did not sign the Paris Agreement under duress or for monetary benefits.”

“We worship nature. It is in Indian ethos...We will continue with the Paris deal irrespective of other countries,” Swaraj asserted as she dismissed Trump’s allegations. She, however, insisted that the American decision on the Paris climate agreement had not changed the landscape of India-US ties.



Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit the US at the end of June in what will also be the first meeting between the two leaders.

When asked by ET if Indo-US defence is a positive story amid some of the irritnats Suhma replied that there was nothing from the US that suggested that the country wanted to water down its defence ties with India. “There has been no change in the ties under Trump administration.

We are going forward as we were moving.” On the proposed tightening of H-1B visas which could affect thousands of Indian IT professionals there, Swaraj said she was in dialogue with the US Congress as well as the Trump administration officials. “Yes, the concern is there,” she said, but added no changes have been made in the visa policy “as of now”.

“There are amendments that cannot be made through executive orders,” she said, referring to the role of the US Congress in this process. “We remain alert to this.”

Earlier on June 2, at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, when asked about India & Paris climate deal the PM had said, “’This question was asked three days ago in Germany, and he had said that whether or not there is a Paris accord, India’s traditions have been to hand over a clean planet, with clean air, to our children, so that they too can live well.” He stressed that the issue here is not about being on one side or the other, but about being on the side of generations yet to be born.