Thaindian News

Washington, Mar 19(ANI): The United States has said that the relationship with India is one of the defining partnerships in the 21st Century, adding that New Delhi is going to be a constructive force and a responsible stakeholder in the world.

When asked to describe the status quo of the India-U.S. relationship, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Robert O. Blake, said: “The United States considers India to be probably one of the defining partnerships for us in the 21st Century. President Obama had a very successful three-day visit to India in November of 2010 in which he announced for the first time U.S. support for India’s candidacy as a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council.”

“That I think reflects our sense that India is first of all going to be a very important partner for the United States going forward, but also is a very constructive force in the world.”

“Increasingly India wants to be a responsible stakeholder, wants to help on all of the major issues confronting the world. Things like nonproliferation, climate change, and we’re very pleased that India is working closely with us in such areas as Afghanistan, helping to address poverty in Africa, and issues such as that,” he added.

Blake further said that one of Obama administration’s highest objectives is to try to increase integration between Central Asia and South Asia

“Again, we think India’s going to be one of our defining partnerships in the 21st Century. In terms of how that reflects on China, we support growing relations between India and China and we have reassured our friends in China that growing relations between the United States and India will not come at China’s expense, and that we want to see the growth of our relations with China, our relations with India, and India’s relations with China,” the Assistant Secretary of State said.

“We’ve been very encouraged by the progress that has been made on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, for example, which we think can be a very valuable opportunity to increase energy links between these two important regions. But we think there could be other infrastructure efforts that build on the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement, for example, that would allow for greater trade between South Asia and Central Asia. So there’s a lot to be done, and we think that China can play such an important role in helping to spur this effort at greater integration,” he added. (ANI)