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India looks forward to 'new level' on ties with US

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Agencies

Posted: Mar 12, 2009 at 1126 hrs IST

Washinton Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to have his first meeting with US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting in London next month as the two countries move rapidly to take their relationship to a "new level".

New Delhi and Washington are also discussing the likelihood of a visit by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to India "in the near future", Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said in Washington.

"I hope that both (Obama and Singh) would be meeting. We are looking forward to that. It's an important conversation," he told reporters, wrapping up his four-day visit to the US.

Singh, who underwent a coronary by-pass surgery on January 24 and has since been recovering fast, will travel to London for the G-20 Summit on the global economic crisis on April 2 and discuss ways to meet the challenge.

"I think, we both (India and the US) are satisfied that we have achieved so much in this relationship. But we both want to do much more. That's why are taking it to a new level," Menon, who held talks with Clinton and senior state department officials on various issues during his visit, said.

This was the first high level Indo-US interaction in the Obama Administration. During his four days of stay in Washington, Menon had as many as 15 meetings with the top officials of the Obama Administration and National Security Advisor General (Rtd.) James Jones.

He also met the top Congressional leaders including Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and his counterpart in the House of Representative Congressman Howard Berman. "Here we are talking of taking our relationship to a whole new level," Menon said.

The purpose of his trip to US, Menon said was twofold. One was to take stock of the bilateral relationship with the new administration and to see how this could be taken forward.

"We also spent quite some time in these meetings discussing the situation in our region and the future of them," he said.

"In the meeting with the Secretary of State, we both reaffirmed the India-US partnership at the global level and she mentioned to me her desire to visit India soon," Menon said.

Referring to the meetings he had here, the Foreign Secretary said: "In all the meetings with the administration, and in Congress, I found a very strong sense of satisfaction of the growth and the transformation of the Indo-US relations in the last few years and a very strong support for carrying these relations forward and building on the successes that we have achieved."

Among the issues that figured prominently during the discussions included the Indo-US nuclear deal, current situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, counter-terrorism cooperation between the two countries, upcoming G-20 summit, Mumbai attacks and the current conflict in Sri Lanka.

The two countries also discussed ways to strengthen their cooperation in defense and counter-terrorism.

"Overall, I am very satisfied the way these discussions have gone during this visit. It has more than met its objective. As I said before, we have a transformed relationship beginning in the 1990s.

"We have managed to move it forward. I would leave Washington confident that we would be rapidly taking this relationship forward with the new administration in the future," Menon said.

Observing that the entire Indo-US relationship was reviewed during his trip, Menon said: "In each of the areas, we actually saw that there are now new things that we can do. It is a huge agenda.

"It is really an intense engagement from agriculture to science to technology we have with the US. We are confident of taking our engagement with the US to a new level."

Menon said: "This is a relationship, which is not only getting high level attention, but also has tremendous potential and is moving forward quite rapidly. That's why I said, I am not just optimistic, but very satisfied and happy the way this visit has gone."

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