By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : Calling India an important partner in its diplomatic agenda, the US says its looks forward to much more “fruitful days of cooperation” in facing terrorism and other challenges together.
“US-India – look, we have a very good, broad, substantive relationship with India on a wide range of fronts,” State Department spokesman Robert A. Wood told reporters Friday when asked about the outcome of Group of 20 summit of advanced economies in London.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Barack Obama met on the sidelines of the summit and discussed a wide range of issues, including terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
“India is an important partner for us, not only in terms of trade but in terms of our overall diplomatic agenda,” he said. “And you know, I think you can look forward to much more fruitful days of cooperation between the United States and India.”
“But we do have some challenges together that we have to face, and terrorism is one of them,” Wood said, asserting that both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “are committed to this relationships very deeply and strongly, and go from there”.
The US has “very good counter-terrorism cooperation with India,” he said, declining to talk about “the types of things that we’re doing together”.
“But certainly we want to work with India as well as other countries want to work with India, to try to prevent any type of further attacks from taking place on Indian soil, as well as other places around the world,” Wood said.
“So again, I just want to reiterate, we have a very, very strong and fruitful counter-terrorism cooperation with India.”
The “successful G-20 meeting” he said, “was a very positive sign for not only the international community’s ability to deal with this financial crisis, but to show that these 20 countries can sit down and agree to carry out measures that are important.”
“And now we all have to go forward and implement what was agreed, and hopefully wind down this financial crisis as quickly as we can.
“But it really showed a lot of solidarity amongst the 20 countries and other institutions that were a part of the Summit meeting. So it was a very positive sign,” Wood said.