Obama`s visit would strengthen Indo-US relationship: Clinton

Lalit K Jha
Washington, Sep 8 (PTI) Identifying India as one of
the major "emerging centers of influence", Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton on Wednesday said the US is laying the
foundation for an "indispensable partnership" with the country
and this would be bolstered during President Barack Obama's
November visit.
In a major foreign policy speech at the Council on
Foreign Relations – a Washington-based think-tank, Clinton
said deepening engagement with "emerging centers of influence"
like India and China is one of the major steps for the Obama
Administration.
Clinton said the US is taking into account countries
that are growing rapidly and already exercising their
influence in the world like China and India, Turkey, Mexico,
Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, as well as Russia.
Through expanded bilateral consultation and within the
context of regional and global institutions, she said, the US
expects these countries to "begin to assume greater
responsibility."
"India, the world's largest democracy, has a very
large convergence of fundamental values and a broad range of
both national and regional interests, and we are laying the
foundation for an indispensable partnership," she said.
"President Obama will use his visit in November to
take our relationship to the next level," the Secretary said.
Obama is scheduled to visit India in November this
year to take the bilateral relationship between the US and
India to new heights. The US President had been saying that he
was looking forward to his India visit.
"We and our allies -- indeed, people everywhere --
have a stake in their playing constructive regional and global
roles, because being a 21st-century power means having to
accept a share of the burden of solving common problems, and
of abiding by a set of the rules of the road, so to speak, on
everything from intellectual-property rights to fundamental
freedoms," she said.
Clinton said in the US' most recent strategic and
economic dialogue with China, for the first time, development
was on the agenda -- "something that the Chinese are doing in
conjunction with their commercial interests, but which we
wanted to begin to talk about so that we could better
cooperate and we could perhaps share lessons (and) learn about
how best to pursue development." (More) PTI