Hyderabad, Jan 12 (IANS) The US Senate India Caucus Thursday said a stable Pakistan is in the interest of both the United States and India.

“There seems to be real time activity going on in Pakistan. It is in both US’s and India’s interest that there is a stable Pakistan,” said Senator Mark Warner, co-chair of Senate India Caucus.

He was talking to reporters on the sidelines of Partnership Summit 2012, and was accompanied by Senators Michael Bennet and Tom Udall.

Warner said India-US bilateral investment treaty would be a first step towards Free Trade Agreement with India.

The Caucus urged Obama administration to make the India-US bilateral investment treaty a higher priority.

“It is in America’s own interest to have this treaty. World-class Indian companies like Infotech, Wipro and Infosys are looking at expanding their footprints in the US. They need to have assurance that their investments would be protected. My hope is that we can push the administration to take it up shortly,” he said.

To another query, Warner said the US sees India and the region as a tremendous growth market, especially for information technology.

“We understand there are Indian concerns about outsourcing. I think one of the ways that this will be mitigated is by more Indian companies investing into the US.”

Warner said the US was disappointed when the Indian government moved away from multi-brand retail decision. He also hoped that civil nuclear liability issue would be resolved, especially in the context of the nuclear accident in Japan.

The senator hoped there would be opportunities in defence sales.

He defended the US officials pitching for job creation in the US. “Every elected official wants to see more jobs created in home district, home state and home country.”

The caucus is looking at the problems around visa issues. “We strongly believe that bipartisan legislation would make easier for particular graduates like science, technology, engineering graduated to get green cards. We are looking at programmes to expand H1B and particularly the percentage of Indians to attend H1B programme.”