Holbrooke to visit India next week

With the Obama administration putting "intensive focus on the challenge in South Asia", its special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, will visit India next week, close on the heels of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's ongoing trip there.
    
Holbrooke will be departing Washington early next week for stops in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, as well as Brussels in Belgium, assistant secretary of state for public affairs, Philip J Crowley, told foreign correspondents here.
    
He, however, did not specify the dates for Holbrooke's visit to these countries.
    
In the first six months of the Obama administration, there had been an "intensive focus on the challenge in South Asia," Crowley said.
    
"We recognise that it is ultimately greater integration among these countries, working on common challenges, regional challenges, finding new structures to be able to expand this cooperation," Crowley said.
    
"That will be how the region ultimately overcomes the challenges that it's facing. Obviously, the United States stands ready to assist in any way we can," he said.
    
Clinton, currently in Mumbai as part of her five-day India visit, would travel to Pakistan later this year.