United States’ outgoing Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on Wednesday said that the relations between the country and India have “never been closer”.

“The U.S. relationship with Asia’s most populous democracy has never been closer, from trade to military cooperation and more,” he said in a tweet, with a link to to his speech from June 2019, when he had visited India.

In a separate tweet, he also hailed Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar as a “great diplomat” and used two campaign slogans for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and incumbent US President Donald Trump as hashtags.

Advertisement

“The US-India relationship was made all the stronger with a great diplomat and leader as my friend. Thank you Jaishankar,” he said in a tweet.

Pompeo, along with US Defence Secretary Mark T Esper had visited India as recently as October for the “2+2” ministerial dialogue with Jaishankar and Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. He had pledged that the US would stand with India in its efforts to guard its sovereignty and liberty, in reference to India’s border standoff with China.

Pompeo, into his last lap of his term at the office, has been making claims on Twitter about his achievements in foreign relations with various countries. However, a recent article in The Washington Post has pointed out that several of his claims contain factual inaccuracies.