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Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, who wrapped up three days of intensive discussions with the hierarchy of the new Obama Administration at the State Department, White House, and Pentagon, and also met with the leadership in the US Congress, apparently has every reason to be satisfied that the transformed US-India relationship is ready to be launched to the next level of the envisaged strategic partnership.
At a press conference at the Willard InterContinental Hotel, Menon said, "In all the meetings with the administration and Congress, I found a very strong sense of satisfaction at the growth and transformation of US-India relations in the last few years and very strong support for carrying the relations forward and building on the successes that we have achieved."
Menon's meetings, which were the first high-level interactions between India and the Obama Administration in Washington, and also the first after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, covered the entire gamut of bilateral, regional and international relations, and according to the Foreign Secretary, elicited an appreciation that now both countries "have a platform to actually take the relationship to a new level."
He acknowledged that in "reviewing the progress, we naturally looked at the civil nuclear agreement," -- consummated last year in the tail-end of the Bush Administration that came to be the centerpiece of the transformed bilateral relationship --"and we saw that we are on track," more so after India's adherence to the Additional Protocol and safeguards were approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency last week.
Menon said that "we are taking action domestically to adhere to the international convention on civil nuclear liability to make possible for US private firms to participate in the nuclear industry in India," which the US companies and industry has been clamoring for.
He said "we also recognized in these conversations the need for India and the US to work together and with other countries to address the global economic crisis, and we agreed that the upcoming meeting of G-20 leaders in London in April, provides an important opportunity to pursue that goal."
"In fact, the economic crisis makes India-US dialogue and economic cooperation event more significant," he added.
Menon said that both sides had also "discussed ways to strengthen our cooperation in defense, counter-terrorism," and said he had expressed the thanks of the government of India and its people "for the operational level cooperation that we've had in the wake of the Mumbai attack."
He said the discussions had also included broader global issues such as climate change, energy security, nonproliferation "and areas which are very important to our development in India, such as health, agriculture, education."
Menon acknowledged that "a considerable part of my time here was also spent in discussing the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where we shared the Indian assessment of the situation and our experience in the construction effort in Afghanistan, where we have a major effort underway to help Afghanistan to rebuild the economy and society," to help the Afghan people "get back to a normal life."
He spoke of how there was "considerable interest" in Administration and Congressional circles over the "success of our decentralized what we call the small development project programs, which is really community-based development work on projects."
"The view seems to be widely held in both governments and development and security must proceed simultaneously if we are to make progress in ensuring peace and stability," in Afghanistan, and by extension in the region as a whole.
Menon reiterated his immense satisfaction over the discussions and asserted that it had "more than met its objectives to move forward in the relationship .and I leave Washington confident that we will be rapidly taking this relationship forward with the new Administration in the future."
The foreign secretary, whose first high-level meeting in his packed programme was with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said, "She mentioned to me her desire to visit India soon."
He also said in all his meetings both sides were also hoping for the first summit between President Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "when both attend the G-20 Leaders Summit in London."
"We are hoping that the Prime Minister's health will permit him to go. We are looking forward to that," he added.
During the question and answer session, Menon refused to be drawn into commenting on Washington's apparent decision to negotiate with the Taliban in Afghanistan, which New Delhi has expressed much concern over.
But while asserting that the US was "quite capable of describing their own view to you," Menon, nonetheless noted, "As far as we are concerned, what we've always said is that it's one thing to create a democratic space within which the Afghan people and that includes all Afghans .can lead a normal life."
He said "the choice really for those who are part of organizations -- and these are loose organizations like the Taliban -- is where they choose to stand in this situation. So, it's not so much a question of negotiating with the Taliban as much as bringing them into the democratic fold," but he noted that the Taliban has always eschewed this avenue and continued to resort to terrorism.
Menon also took exception to the contention in some quarters that now with an Obama Administration committed to non-proliferation and a majority Democratic Congress, may be less enthusiastic in operationalizing the nuclear deal.
He asserted that "I was very reassured by all the conversations here where the determination to go through with it were quite clear," and pointed out that it was approved overwhelmingly by a Democratic-controlled Congress and a Republican Administration.
Menon said, "Now it's a question of actually operationalizing the agreement. These were enabling agreements, which laid out the framework within which we cooperate."
"Now, it's really a question of commercial contracts and the other work that has to be done. We have to now bring it down to the commercial level, work with firms and see that we actually build those reactors and build that fuel cycle," he said, and reiterated, "The determination is there on both sides to see this through and it is clear that we will continue."
When asked if there was concern that the composite dialogue with Pakistan that showed so much promise is now effectively comatose in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks, Menon said, "Our issues with Pakistan, the stage of our relationship today, is something that everybody knows about," particularly the US.
He spoke of how "We have worked with the US after the Mumbai attacks on the counter-terrorism front and on trying to bring the perpetrators to justice."
"From our point of view, there are two clear goals that we will work to and that we would hope our friends will work toward as well. One is to bring the perpetrators to justice."
"Secondly, we would like to see credible actions by the Pakistan to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan," he added.
Menon acknowledged that "we have seen the beginning of some steps toward the first goal It's a positive development, but there is much more to go and we would hope that they would continue to do the right thing and see this through to the end."
Besides Clinton, Menon met with her deputy James Steinburg, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns, the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, and then over at the White House with Obama's National Security Adviser Jim Jones, and Bruce Riedel, co-chair of the US inter-agency review on US policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan.
At the Pentagon, he met with Acting Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Peter Verga, Admiral Timothy Keating, Commander of the US Pacific Command and General David Petraeus, Commander of US Central Command.
On Capitol Hill, Menon met with Senators John F Kerry and Richard Lugar, the chairman and ranking Republican respectively of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and also Senators Joseph Lieberman and Joe Casey.
On the House side, he met Congressman Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and senior members of the Committee, Congressmen Gary Ackerman and Ed Royce, also past Democratic and Republican co-chairs of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans.
Menon also met with the current Democratic co-chair of the India Caucus, Congressman Jim McDermott, who holds the record for the most number of trips to India twenty-two and counting.
Image: Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon (left) makes a gesture during a press conference in Washington DC as India's Deputy Chief of Mission, Ambassador Arun Singh looks on.
Photo: Jay Mandal/On Assignment