By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : With the India-US civil nuclear deal establishing a new level of trust between the two countries, New Delhi and Washington are poised to become “global partners” to help shape the 21st century, says a senior US official.
The recent visit of Undersecretary of State William Burns to India had paved the way for the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to visit “and underscores our commitment to an expanded partnership with India,” Robert O. Blake, Jr, the new US pointman for South Asia, told a panel of the House of Representatives Thursday.
President Barack Obama and Clinton “have both expressed a deep commitment to building stronger ties with India, a commitment based on mutual respect and mutual interests,” Blake, the new assistant secretary of state for south and central Asian affairs, noted.
As “Clinton recently put it in her speech before the US India Business Council ‘we see India as one of the few key partners worldwide who will help us shape the 21st century,'” he said giving a regional overview of South Asia to the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.
Noting that the ruling Congress Party won a substantial victory in India’s recent elections and “formed a coalition supportive of a stronger US-India relationship”, Blake said the US looked forward to working with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government to make that vision a reality.
“The US-India relationship has been on a positive trajectory for over a decade, he said. And Both Clinton and Obama “hope that the next stage in our country’s relationship will see a dramatic expansion in our common agenda, and a greater role for India in solving global challenges,” Blake said citing Clinton.
“The implementation of the Civil Nuclear Cooperation Initiative established this new level of trust between our countries and set the stage for the next level of US India cooperation in which we can become global partners while also focusing on India’s still huge development needs,” he said.
The US also continued to support dialogue between Indian and Pakistani leaders, he said. But “the timing and scope and
content of any such dialogue are strictly matters for the Indians and Pakistani to decide.”
Earlier, the sub-committee’s Democratic chairman Gary Ackerman noted that “with India we are moving forward on what I believe can be and will be a true strategic partnership, one built on both shared values and genuine cooperation across a broad range of shared interests.”
Referring to the India-US nuclear deal, he said: “Though people tend to focus on cooperation on nuclear energy, I believe the potential of the relationship is much, much greater.”
“The recent Indian elections hold out real hope of a strong government in New Delhi that is ready and willing to address the many political and economic challenges facing a country that, despite it shining achievements in the ‘new economy,’ remains overwhelming rural, agrarian, and impoverished,” Ackerman said.
He saw “a tremendous opportunity for us to engage successfully with this government across the full spectrum of our interests.”
“Special relationships aren’t announced, they’re built one agreement and one success at a time,” Ackerman said. “It’s time for New Delhi and Washington to get to work.”
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])