US wants to help India be a superpower

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US wants to help India be a superpower
Saturday, 26 March , 2005, 09:58

Washington: The United States unveiled plans Friday to help India become
a "major world power in the 21st century" even as it announced moves to
beef up the military of Pakistan.

Under the plans, Washington offered to step up a strategic dialogue with
India to boost missile defense and other security initiatives as well as
high-tech cooperation and expanded economic and energy cooperation.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has presented to Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh the Bush administration's outline for a "decisively
broader strategic relationship" between the world's oldest and largest
democracies, a senior US official said.

"Its goal is to help India become a major world power in the 21st
century," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"We understand fully the implications, including military implications,
of that statement."

He did not elaborate but noted that South Asia was critical, with China
on one side, Iran and West Asia on the other, and a somewhat turbulent
Central Asian region to the north.

The US-India plan was announced as Washington decided Friday to sell an
undetermined number of F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan under a plan to
prop up Pakistan on the political, military and economic fronts.

Rice discussed the US-India plan with Singh during her Asian visit
earlier this month but it was not revealed to the public.

The US proposal culminates efforts to repair relations strained by
India's May 1998 nuclear tests.

The healing process began when Bill Clinton visited India in March 2000
near the end of his presidency, as the first president to go there since
Jimmy Carter in 1978.

He eased sanctions on purchases of high-tech equipment and broke into a
market formerly served by India's Cold War ally Russia.

President George W Bush's administration, under a so-called "Next Steps
in Strategic Partnership," pushed that process forward by completely
lifting sanctions, including military sales, in return for India's
support on the US-led war on terrorism.

"This year the administration made a judgment that the 'Next Steps in
Strategic Partnership,' though very important, wasn't broad enough to
really encompass the kind of things we needed to do to take this
relationship where it needed to go, and so the president and the
secretary (Rice) developed the outline for a decisively broader
strategic relationship," the US official said.

Bush was inviting Prime Minister Singh to visit him in July in
Washington and the US leader would also like to travel to South Asia
later this year or early next year, he said.

Those presidential meetings, he added, would "be consolidating an
enhanced dialogue" on the strategic, energy and economic tracks with India.

The strategic dialogue will include global issues, regional security
matters, Indian defense requirements, expanding high-tech cooperation
and even working toward US-India defense co-production, the official
explained.

The United States, he said, was prepared to "respond positively" to an
Indian request for information on American initiatives to sell New Delhi
the next generation of multi-role combat aircraft.

"That's not just F-16s. It could be F-18s," he said.

Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said US corporations were
now "free to talk to India" about whatever aircraft they could offer.

"It'll be up to India to decide what it wants. And then negotiations, if
it does decide it wants something from us, based on its needs, would
proceed from there," Ereli said.

Beyond possible sale of fighter planes, the US is ready to discuss the
more fundamental issue of defense transformation with India, including
transformative systems in areas such as command and control, early
warning and missile defense, the official said.

"Some of these items may not be as glamorous as combat aircraft, but I
think for those of you who follow defense issues you'll appreciate the
significance," he said.

The energy dialogue is to include civil, nuclear and nuclear safety
issues as well as the issue of space launch vehicles and satellites
while the existing economic dialogue would be revitalized with
discussion of energy, trade, commerce, environment and finance.

US energy, treasury and transport ministers are to visit India this year.