India, US to chart out roadmap for deepening ties: Blake

From Lalit K Jha
Washington, Jul 16 (PTI) India and the US will seek to
chart out a roadmap for the deepening bilateral ties as they
discuss key issues, including counter-terrorism, economic ties
and cooperation in civil nuclear energy at the crucial
strategic dialogue next week.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will lead a top
American delegation in talks with the Indian team led by her
counterpart S M Krishna during the Indo-US Strategic Dialogue
on July 19 in New Delhi. Clinton would also hold talks with
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
In the government-to-government talks, Clinton would
be focusing primarily on where the two countries want to take
this relationship forward, according to Assistant Secretary of
State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake.
"I think that's primarily on India's growing role in
Asia and our ability to try to work more closely with India.
Secondly, India('s role) in the wider region around
particularly in Afghanistan and our hopes that we can
significantly expand regional economic integration for the
benefit not only of Afghanistan, but also Pakistan and India,"
he said.
India is "such an important part of that future vision
because of the tremendous growth that Under Secretary (of
State for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs Robert)
Hormats outlined," he said.
Blake said counter-terrorism would be one of the
important areas of talks wherein some announcements are
expected.
He said US Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security Lute
will be part of the delegation for these meetings. "Another
one will be to continue of course the sustained economic
progress," the Assistant Secretary said.
Blake said the US was in favour of "the next
generation of economic reforms in India" that will help to
sustain progress and help India to become "the third largest
economy in the world, but also a hugely important market for
the United States".
The Assistant Secretary said the reforms were equally
important for the synergy between the scientists, businesses
and innovators of the two countries.
"We see so many different opportunities to work
together," he underlined.
Blake said energy would be another major topic of
discussion during the dialogue.
He said Deputy Secretary Dan Poneman of Energy will be
present to explore the "many exciting opportunities in the
energy field," and hoped that "a lot of that will be announced
in the course of the dialogue".
The Assistant Secretary said a "very important piece"
would be the cooperation in the civil nuclear field as
"American companies are very excited about the various
"possibilities".
He said India last year committed to ratifying the
Convention on Supplementary Compensation, the nuclear
liability law. "So I expect that will be another subject of
discussion," Blake underlined.
The Assistant Secretary stressed that several new
initiatives are likely to be announced to enhance
people-to-people cooperation.
"We'll have several new initiatives to announce in
that respect not only on education, but also in some other
ways that we can encourage continued growth of Indians coming
to the US, but also more Americans going to India," he noted.
Blake said the State Department is currently trying to
figure out ways where it can put together a coalition and an
alliance of groups to make it easier for Indians in the
diaspora here and other diaspora communities as well, to make
contributions to development.
"We're going to try to develop tax deductible
mechanisms that will allow for a lot of these people-to-people
things that we talked about. We're not going to announce it at
the Strategic Dialogue, but we do believe there are some quite
important opportunities there," he said.
He said once this was in place it's going to be a
tremendous way to match and publicise a lot of "the terrific
opportunities that are taking place in India."
"We will be able..... to assure donors in the United
States that these are in fact worthy projects that they can
contribute to and that they can be assured that the money is
going to the right place without any fears of diversion of
money or corruption or anything like that," Blake said.
Other officials in the US delegation that would visit
India include Director of National Intelligence James R
Clapper, Jr; Director in the Office of Science and Technology
Policy John P Holdren; and Federal Aviation Administration
Administrator J Randolph Babbitt.
Indian-American Aneesh Chopra, the White House Chief
Technology Officer, would also be part of the delegation,
besides the Export-Import Bank Chair Fred P Hochberg; Overseas
Private Investment Corporation Chair Elizabeth L Littlefield
and Director in US Trade and Development Agency Lee Zak.
Under Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and
Agricultural Affairs Hormats and Special US Envoy for Climate
Change Todd Stern are the top State Department officials along
with Blake, who are part for the India trip.