India's rise in America's interest: Top US offcial

As US President Barack Obama prepares to head to India, a top administration official today said India's rise on the global stage is in the strategic interest of the US, and the two countries had a lot to gain by high-tech cooperation and innovation.

Under-secretary of state for political affairs Bill Burns welcomed the signing by India of the Convention on Supplemental Compensation, as he told reporters at a special White House briefing on India that the Indo-US partnership has been a genuine bipartisan priority in Washington for some years now.

"Over the last decade, through three administrations of both of our parties and two Indian governments of different parties, we've transformed the relationship," he said.

"The simple truth is that India's rise and its strength and progress on the global stage is deeply in the strategic interest of the United States," he said, pointing out that President Obama has termed the relationship a defining partnership of the 21st century.

Terming the two countries as natural partners, Burns said Washington looks forward to US companies contributing to civil nuclear development in India and noted that the two countries are making progress on cooperation in space and updating export controls.

"We're the world's two largest democracies. We're both big, diverse, tolerant societies. We're two of the world's largest economies. We both have an increasing stake in global stability and prosperity, especially across Asia and the Pacific," he observed.

Noting that defence cooperation between the two nations is expanding in ways that were hard to imagine a decade ago, he said, India now holds more defence exercises every year with the US than it does with any other country.

"Some $4 billion in defence sales have been made by the US to India over the last couple of years alone, with more possibilities ahead. India is today one of the biggest contributors to UN peacekeeping forces," he said.

"We have a lot to gain by working together in high-tech cooperation and innovation. The civilian nuclear agreement that was completed at the end of the last administration removed the single biggest irritant in our relationship and opened the door to wider cooperation. We've worked hard in this administration to follow through and completing, for example, a reprocessing agreement between the US and India six months ahead of schedule," he said.

He said Washington looked forward to US companies contributing to Indian civil nuclear development.

"And the signing today by the Indian government in Vienna of the Convention on Supplemental Compensation is a very positive step toward ensuring that international standards apply and that US companies are going to have a level playing field on which to compete," Burns said.

"We're also making progress on cooperation in space and updating export controls to reflect the reality of a 21st-century partnership in which India is treated as a partner and not as a target," Burns said.

He also highlighted the deepening connections between the peoples and societies.

"Today, there are more than 1,00,000 Indian students in American universities, more than from any other single foreign country; three million Indian-Americans play a very vibrant role in American society... and bilateral trade has quadrupled in the last decade," Burns said.

He said the fact that the president will spend three days in India -- the longest single foreign visit of his presidency so far -- underscores the significance of the ties.

"... the fact that this follows the first state visit of the Obama presidency by Prime Minister Singh last year; the fact that India is the first stop on a trip to four major Asian democratic partners, I think all of that underscores the significance and the potential of Indian-American partnership," said the top American diplomat.