Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao on Tuesday said U.S. President Barack Obama's visit beginning from Saturday would not see “dramatic breakthroughs and big bangs” but reflect the continuity in bilateral ties.
“It will be an opportunity to consolidate all that we have built in the past decade….we will see concrete and significant steps in a wide range of areas that will expand the long-term strategic framework of the relationship in a way that we can create a productive partnership for the mutual benefit of our two countries and, equally important, to give substantive content and shape to our global strategic partnership.''
Ms. Rao was speaking at the concluding session of the FICCI-Brookings dialogue on India-U.S. strategic partnership.
Consensus
While there was much debate and speculation on whether the relationship had sustained its momentum, she said, there was consensus on at least one fundamental point — a strong India-U.S. strategic partnership is in the interest of both countries and is good for the world.
Pointing out that since April this year, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Mr. Obama had met six times, Ms. Rao said this period saw the two governments concluding or launching several initiatives including completion of the remaining steps for implementation of their Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.
However, the visit comes at a time of significant global and regional challenges and India wanted to intensify its strategic consultations on regional and global issues, deepen bilateral cooperation in space, clean energy, health care, education, agriculture, non-proliferation and high technology, she observed.
