US President Donald Trump Turns Down India’s Invite For R-Day Celebrations; Stance On Iran, Russia May Be Reason

In a letter from the US authorities to NSA Ajit Doval, it was revealed that US President Donald Trump has turned down the Indian government’s invitation to visit India on the occasion of Republic Day celebrations.

The US President's domestic commitments, notably his State of the Union (SOTU) address, around that time of the year are apparently the reason for Trump not accepting India's invite. The letter sent is said to have a regret message from Trump.

Trump's response though is in sharp contrast to the one from his predecessor Barack Obama who, despite faced with the same domestic presidential obligations in 2015, agreed to visit India as a Republic Day chief guest.

As per reports by TOI, India had officially invited Trump for Republic Day on 13 July. While the US had confirmed the invite, it had said that the final decision would be taken after the inaugural 2+2 dialogue in September.

Indo-US ties have been under a lot of strain lately because of differences over India's defence purchases from Russia and also its oil imports from Iran.

But India has refused to stop, or even cut down drastically, on oil imports from Iran. As US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had said after the 2+2 dialogue here, US' "expectation" was that India, and indeed other countries, would bring down oil imports from Iran to zero by 4 November to avoid sanctions. India has said that it will be guided solely by its energy interests and its public sector companies are learnt to have already placed crude import orders with Iran for the month of November.

The US formal response to India's invite brings to an end months of intense speculation about whether or not Trump would visit India for Republic Day celebrations.