Washington: Foreign Secretary Nirupama
Rao is set to meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and
National Security Advisor James Jones, signifying importance
attach by the Obama Administration to ties with India.
Rao, who is currently on a six-day trip to the US,
would also be meeting her American counterpart Under Secretary
of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns. Besides, Washington
she would be visiting New York.
Her meetings are likely to cover a host of bilateral
and regional issues ahead of US President Barack Obama visit
to India later this year.
"The next phase of Indo-US strategic dialogue,
scheduled here sometime in late spring or early spring, are
expected to figure in her meeting with Clinton and Burns," a
State Department official said.
The issues of Afghanistan, Pakistan, non-proliferation
and export controls are likely to discussed during her meeting
with the NSA, a senior Obama administration official said.
Last week, Assistant Secretary of State for South and
Central Asia Robert Blake had said, in an interview, that both
President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton believe
that Indo-US relationship is going to be one of the most
consequential of the US foreign policy in the 21st century.
"So we see it as very much in our interest to try to
capitalize on the converging values and interests that we have
between the US and India, and the strong people-to-people ties
that we have with India to not only make progress on the wide
range of bilateral activities that we have with India.
"But also, increasingly, to cooperate with India to
confront the challenges of the 21st century, be they global
proliferation concerns or trying to complete the Doha Round of
global trade negotiations, climate change," Blake said.
"We think that India is going to be an increasingly
important factor in the 21st century, but also an increasingly
important friend. So, it's very much in our interest to seize
that opportunity now and that's why you saw the President make
Prime Minister Singh the very first state visitor of the new
administration. And that's why, I think, you're going to see
the US working very, very closely with India in the course of
the Obama administration," he said.
Blake said the Obama Administration was pursuing its
relations with India on their own merits because, again, it
feel that this is just a significant opportunity not only to
increase its bilateral relations but also to work with India
on these big, global challenges that they face.
"We don't put it in the context of our relations with
China, which we also greatly value, and, of course, China also
will be one of the most important powers of the 21st century,
and we have our own, separate partnership with China that is
extremely important to the US as well," he said, adding so, we
try not to hyphenate those two.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, March 16, 2010, 09:32