Washington, July 9 (ANI): The United States will look to enhance the scope of counter-terrorism cooperation with India during the second US-India Strategic Dialogue to be held in New Delhi in the third week of July.
Robert O. Blake, Jr., Assistant Secretary, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, told Indian journalists during a web chat from Washington that he didn't really see any limits on counter-terrorism cooperation with India.
"This is a very high priority for the United States to work with our Indian friends to ensure that they have the best systems in place possible to prevent future terrorist attacks such as the terrible attacks that occurred in Mumbai in November of 2008. Indeed, one of the hallmarks of our cooperation over the last several years has been the increase in our counter-terrorism cooperation since that time. So we're looking to build on that," Blake said.
" We've just had a very successful Homeland Security Dialogue that was chaired and led by our Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, who went out to Delhi in May of this year to meet with Minister Chidambaram. They had a very successful series of meetings and agreed on a wide range of new collaborative efforts to expandomeland security cooperation and counter-terrorism cooperation," he added.
He said that there was no room for trying to hyphenate or distinguish on cooperation that's going on with Pakistan or any other country, adding that it is something that is done on merit.
He also said that he didn't agree with the view that India was a non-aligned country anymore.
He said India's status in this regard had changed after 9/11 where it realized that it had a wide range of common interests with the United States.
"I don't think that the United States and India will be allies in the traditional sense, but I do think that we have an expanding convergence of our national interests," Blake said.
When specifically asked about the critical steps the Obama administration was taking to counter terrorism in Pakistan and to stop it from spreading to India, Blake said: "Our relations with Pakistan are very complicated, but it's also an extremely important relationship, and it's also extremely important for India as well."
"Pakistan has suffered more than any other country in the world from the scourge of terrorism inside its own country, and Pakistan has pledged to ensure that its territory is not used as a platform for terrorists to attack other countries such as India or the United States. So we're working very hard with Pakistan to ensure that that becomes a reality," he added.,
Admitting that this could be a bumpy road to travel on, Blake said that it was important for the United States to help Pakistan to meet the many economic, energy and security challenges that it faces.
Asked whether he saw India playing a significant rapproachment role between U.S. and Iran, Blake said: I don't expect that India will have a huge role to play in that, although we do value our dialogue withndia on Iran."
He also said that ties between Washington and Tehran would be dependent on how much the latter backed off on its nuclear program. (ANI)
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