Robert Gates on India visit from Jan 19

Lalit K Jha
Washington, Jan 18 (PTI) US Defence Secretary Robert
Gates will visit India from Tuesday, with deliberations on
regional security situation top on his agenda during a tour
that will reinforce the importance the Obama Administration
places on the bilateral ties.
During the January 19-21 tour, Gates will meet Prime
Minister of India Manmohan Singh, External Affairs Minister S
M Krishna and Defence Minister A K Antony.
"Our objective is to reinforce the importance we place on
our bilateral relationship with India as an emerging global
power," Defence Department spokesperson Major Maureen Schmuann
told PTI on Monday.
"We will discuss ways to deepen the current and look for
new areas of trade and cooperation. We will also discuss
regional security issues," Schumann said.
This would be the first visit of Gates to India in two
years and also the first by a top member of the Obama
Administration after the State Visit of the Prime Minister to
Washington in November.
Gates had a special meeting with the Prime Minister
during his US trip, during which the two leaders discussed
bilateral relationship and regional issues.
The Defence Secretary would arrive in New Delhi after his
quick trip to Kabul and Islamabad.
During his trip to Islamabad, Gates is likely to meet
President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani,
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Army chief Gen Ashfaq
Parvez Kayani and ISI chief Lt Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha.
While Pakistan wants increased military support to pursue
its war against terrorism, the US wants Islamabad to expand
their war against the extremists in South Waziristan to North
Waziristan, the stronghold of the Afghan Taliban.
Gates, who was the Defence Secretary in the previous Bush
Administration too, believes that India is a major global
regional power and an emerging global power.
In a speech at the International Institute for Strategic
Studies in Singapore in May, Gates had said that in the coming
years, the United States would look at India to be a partner
and a net provider of security in Indian Ocean and beyond.
Identifying India as one of the emerging power centres,
Gates said: "When it comes to India, we have seen a watershed
in our relations -- cooperation that would have been
unthinkable in the recent past."
Transcripts of his speech were made available by the
Department of Defence here.
Gates had said the strategic landscape of Asia continues
to evolve as new and re-emerging centres of power -- from
China and Russia, to India and Indonesia -- combined with
other shifts, give impetus to the search for a new security
architecture in the region. PTI LKJ