KARACHI: Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh will visit Russia and the United States this month to discuss what New Delhi terms “cross-border terrorism” in India-held Kashmir and growing activities of the militant Islamic State (IS) group in the region.

According to a report by the Press Trust of India news agency, Singh will visit Russia for five days, beginning on Sept 18.

He will hold talks with Russian Minister for Internal Affairs Vladimir Kolokoltsev and discuss issues related to bilateral cooperation on measures aimed to counter terrorism.

The minister will travel to Washington on Sept 26 for a seven-day visit for the Indo-US Homeland Security Dialogue with his American counterpart, Jeh Charles Johnson.

“In both the visits, to Russia and the US, the home minister will highlight Pakistan’s involvement in cross-border terrorism and growing activities of the Middle East terror group [IS] in India and its neighbourhood,” the PTI report quoted a Home Ministry official as saying.

Singh’s visit was significant, especially after India “raised the pitch” on the issue of “export of terror” from Pakistan, the report said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue at the G20 and BRICS meetings and the East Asia Summit, where he called on the international community to isolate and sanction “instigators of terrorism”, it said.

Modi urged the nations to intensify joint efforts to combat terrorism and called for “coordinated actions” to “isolate supporters and sponsors of terrorism”.

The bilateral visits of the home minister were part of India’s efforts to create global opinion against “Pakistan-sponsored terrorism” in India, according to the official.

Real-time sharing of intelligence inputs, cyber security and critical infrastructure protection, countering illicit financing, global supply chain security and megacity policing were some of the key issues to be discussed at the meetings to be held in Moscow and Washington, the PTI report said.

Published in Dawn September 12th, 2016