By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : The US-India relationship is “a good-news story” that’s “going to get even better,” says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“In a world where, let’s admit it, frankly, the headlines can get depressing, our relationship with India is a good-news story,” she said speaking at the US-India Business Council’s (USIBC) Synergies Summit here Wednesday. “And I think it’s going to get even better.
“But it’s important to place this in history and to remember that the United States and India haven’t always had such a promising partnership,” she said. “We need to acknowledge the road we have travelled together.”
“We have already come through two distinct eras in US-India relations on our way to this new beginning” calling it the third era.
The first era opened with India’s founding and lasted to the end of the Cold War. It was coloured by uncertainty about each other’s motives and ambivalence about whether to pursue closer cooperation.
“The relationship between our countries was never hostile, but the missed opportunities for closer partnership during this period were casualties of old conflicts between East and West and North and South.”
After the Cold War ended, President Bill Clinton opened a new chapter of engagement with India and talks between former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and his Indian counterpart helped to establish a new foundation for the relationship.
This second stage in the US-India “history continued through the last US and Indian administrations and culminated in completion of the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement, this past October, under the Bush administration,” Clinton said.