Strobe Talbott &  Husain Haqqani share their views at a joint Asia Society-Brookings India event

Mumbai, 10 January 2014 – India and Pakistan’s relationship with the United States of America is undergoing dramatic change.  The rapid pace of change can be traced back to the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, which caused Washington to to refocus its policy in South Asia.

This change and the future direction of these relationships was the focus of an off-the-record breakfast meeting with Strobe Talbott and Husain Haqqani hosted by the Asia Society India Centre and Brookings India in Mumbai.

The gathering included corporate executives, diplomats, academics, and journalists.  Talbott, President of the Brookings Institution, and Haqqani, former Pakistani Ambassador to Washington D.C. and advisor to Benazir Bhutto, spoke about past misunderstandings and the continuing fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The interconnected triangle of foreign relations was the focus of the breakfast meeting in Asia Society’s elegant boardroom in the heart of Mumbai’s financial district.

Many of the questions and issues brought up by the participants centered around the drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Washington’s ongoing drone program in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the fallout of the diplomatic dispute over the recent arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York City.