Scope for progress with India on contentious issues: US

Lalit K Jha

Washington, Jul 16 (PTI) On the eve of Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton's India visit, the United States on
Thursday said there is a scope for progress with New Delhi on
all major contentious issues including global nonproliferation
agreement, Doha round of trade talks and climate change.

"We believe there is scope for progress on all three
of those issues. And, you know, we look forward to working
with our Indian friends on all three," Assistant Secretary of
State for South and central Asia Robert Blake told reporters
at a press briefing held to give a preview of the Clinton's
trip to India beginning from Friday.

With respect to climate change, the Obama
Administration thinks there is a big opportunity now for India
to pursue a path, a clean energy path that will leapfrog sort
of the old technologies and adopt a clean energy, low-carbon
future, Blake noted.

Asserting that India is "very much" committed to that,
he said: "We've already had extensive bilateral consultations
and multilateral consultations on the very important
Copenhagen meetings that will be coming up in December."

The US hopes the two countries can work together to
find a solution and common ground so that there can be a
strong international agreement on that, Blake said.

Noting that there are new opportunities now on global
trade, Blake said new Commerce Minister Anand Sharma has
expressed India's intention to work with the US to try to move
to a final phase of negotiations on Doha.

Similarly, on nonproliferation, he argued the
agreement on civil nuclear cooperation opens the door for much
greater cooperation, not only bilaterally in terms of the
nuclear sites, but also multilaterally.

"India's special negotiator on these issues Shyam
Saran, gave a speech at Brookings earlier this year, in which
he said exactly that. He said that India looks forward to
working with the United States and other countries to advance
the global nonproliferation agenda," Blake said.

"So part of the new strategic cooperation that will be
announced will be, a dialogue on nonproliferation issues that
will be shared at a very senior level by our new Under
Secretary Ellen Tauscher and obviously with her Indian
counterpart," Blake added. PTI LKJ
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