| Roemer praises Indian role in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka | |
| Lalit K Jha/ PTI / Washington July 8, 2009, 10:10 IST | |
The Obama administration's top diplomatic nominee for India has praised the country's role in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.
"I would like to say with respect to the Indians and Afghanistan that they have provided a very helpful role to the United States and to Afghanistan and to the region," Tim Roemer, the nominated US Ambassador to India, told lawmakers at his confirmation hearing yesterday.
"They have invested over a billion people in economic development. That is a key interest for us in resolving and helping out in Afghanistan with kinetic and non-kinetic power," Roemer said in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
On India's role in Sri Lanka, Roemer appreciated the massive Indian humanitarian aid to the island nation, which has just emerged out of a more than three-decades of civil war.
"With respect to Sri Lanka, the Indian government has sent high-level — I think their foreign minister and their national security adviser have been down there if not once, twice. They've committed $20 million in aid. They've pledged another $100 million in aid," he added.
Roemer said the United States is very concerned about the internally displaced people and encouraging resettlement and reconciliation and a peace process to go forward.
"I think that's something that would be important for the next ambassador, to continue to work with the Indian government on, to see that the Sri Lankan situation moves in a peaceful process, with reconciliation as a high goal," he shared.
The US Ambassador nominee for India said that addressing the pressing issue of poverty in India through Indo-US relationship would be a top priority for him as America's top diplomat in New Delhi.
"This (poverty in India) would be a key priority for me as the next Ambassador. The (US) President is extremely interested in this, as the Secretary of State is," Roemer told US lawmakers at confirmation hearing when Senator Richard Lugar citing a recent World Bank report informed him that there are 828 million Indians living on less than $2 a day.
"As you know, (Indian) Prime Minister (Manmohan) Singh campaigned vigorously in the rural communities, where about 70 per cent of the Indian population resides, trying to promise the benefits of prosperity and global trade, to more and more of the people that live on less than $2 or $1.25 per day," he shared.
Noting that there are statistics which say that 456 million Indians live on less than $1.25 a day, Roemer added: "This is an opportunity again — for our government, our businesses, our NGOs, microenterprise loans for the poor — to all work together, to scale up some successful projects, not necessarily by taxpayer or always by the State Department but through the private sector, to address this issue of poverty."
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