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'For the sake of the innocents who suffer the most, someone must end the contest of inflicting and absorbing pain'

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Part I: 'Every solution to every challenge can be found here in India'

Part II: 'Only India can know if it truly is safer today than before the tests'

I can only speak to you as a friend about America's own experience during the Cold War. We were geographically distant from the Soviet Union. We were not engaged in direct armed combat. Through years of direct dialogue with our adversary, we each had a very good idea of the other's capabilities, doctrines, and intentions. We each spent billions of dollars on elaborate command and control systems, for nuclear weapons are not cheap.

And yet, in spite of all of this -- and as I sometimes say jokingly, in spite of the fact that both sides had very good spies, and that was a good thing-- in spite of all of this, we come far too close to nuclear war. We learned that deterrence alone cannot be relied on to prevent accident or miscalculations. And in a nuclear standoff, there is nothing more dangerous than believing there is no danger.

I can also repeat what I said at the outset. India is a leader, a great nation, which by virtue of its size, its achievements, and its example, has the ability to shape the character of our time. For any of us, to claim that mantle and assert that status is to accept first and foremost that our actions have consequences for others beyond our borders. Great nations with broad horizons must consider whether actions advance or hinder what Nehru called the larger cause of humanity.

So India's nuclear policies, inevitably, have consequences beyond your borders, eroding the barriers against the spread of nuclear weapons, discouraging nations that have chosen to foreswear these weapons, encouraging others to keep their options open. But if India's nuclear tests shock the world, India's leadership for nonproliferation can certainly move the world.

India and the United States have reaffirmed our commitment to forego nuclear testing. And for that I thank the Prime Minister, the government and the people of India. But in our own self-interest -- and I say this again -- in our own self-interest we can do more. I believe both nations should join the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; work to launch negotiations on a treaty to end the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons; strengthen export controls. And India can pursue defense policies in keeping with its commitment not to seek a nuclear or missile arms race, which the Prime Minister has forcefully reaffirmed just in these last couple of days.

Again, I do not presume to speak for you or to tell you what to decide. It is not my place. You are a great nation and you must decide. But I ask you to continue our dialogue on these issues. And let us turn our dialogue into a genuine partnership against proliferation. If we make progress in narrowing our differences, we will be both more secure, and our relationship can reach its full potential.

I hope progress can also be made in overcoming a source of tension in this region, including the tensions between India and Pakistan. I share many of your government's concerns about the course Pakistan is taking; your disappointment that past overtures have not always met with success; your outrage over recent violence. I know it is difficult to be a democracy bordered by nations whose governments reject democracy.

But I also believe -- I also believe India has a special opportunity, as a democracy, to show its neighbours that democracy is about dialogue. It does not have to be about friendship, but it is about building working relationships among people who differ.

One of the wisest things anyone ever said to me is that you don't make peace with your friends. That is what the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin told me before he signed the Oslo Accord with the Palestinians, with whom he had been fighting for decades. It is well to remember -- I remind myself of it all the time, even when I have arguments with members of the other party in my Congress you don't make peace with your friends.

Engagement with adversaries is not the same thing as endorsement. It does not require setting aside legitimate grievances. Indeed, I strongly believe that what has happened since your Prime Minister made his courageous journey to Lahore only reinforces the need for dialogue.

I can think of no enduring solution to this problem that can be achieved in any other way. In the end, for the sake of the innocents who always suffer the most, someone must end the contest of inflicting and absorbing pain.

Let me also make clear, as I have repeatedly, I have certainly not come to South Asia to mediate the dispute over Kashmir. Only India and Pakistan can work out the problems between them. And I will say the same thing to General Musharraf in Islamabad. But if outsiders cannot resolve this problem, I hope you will create the opportunity to do it yourself, calling on the support of others who can help where possible, as American diplomacy did in urging the Pakistanis to go back behind the line of control in the Kargil crisis.

In the meantime, I will continue to stress that this should be a time for restraint, for respect for the line of control, for renewed lines of communication.

Addressing this challenge and all the others I mentioned will require us to be closer partners and better friends, and to remember that good friends, out of respect, are honest with one another. And even when they do not agree, they always try to find common ground.

I have read that one of the unique qualities of Indian classical music is its elasticity. The composer lays down a foundation, a structure of melodic and rhythmic arrangements, but the player has to improvise within that structure to bring the raga to life.

Our relationship is like that. The composers of our past have given us a foundation of shared democratic ideals. It is up to us to give life to those ideals in this time. The melodies do not have to be the same to be beautiful to both of us. But if we listen to each other, and we strive to realize our vision together, we will write a symphony far greater than the sum of our individual notes.

The key is to genuinely and respectfully listen to each other. If we do, Americans will better understand the scope of India's achievements, and the dangers India still faces in this trouble part of the world. We will understand that India will not choose a particular course simply because others wish it to do so. It will choose only what is believes its interests clearly demand and what its people democratically embrace.

If we listen to each other. I also believe Indians will understand better than America very much wants you to succeed. Time and again, time and again in my time as president, America had found that it is the weakness of great nations, not their strength, that threatens our vision for tomorrow.

So we want India to be strong, to be secure, to be united; to be a force for a safer, more prosperous, more democratic world. Whatever we ask of you, we ask in that spirit alone. After too long a period of estrangement, India and the United States have learned that being natural allies in a wonderful thing, but it is not enough. Our task is to turn a common vision into common achievements so that partners in spirit can be partners in fact. We have already come a long way to this day of new beginnings, but we still have promises to keep, challenges to meet and hopes to redeem.

So let us seize this moment with humility in the fragile and fleeting nature of this life, but absolute confidence in the power of the human spirit. Let us seize it for India, for America, for all those with whom we share this small planet, and for all the children that together we can give such bright tomorrows.

Thank you very much.

CLINTON VISITS INDIA:The complete coverage

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