Af-Pak, business ties important part of Obama's India visit

Current situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan, besides the global economy and bilateral business ties will be an important part of the US President Barack Obama's visit to India next month, the White House has said.

"I anticipate that the world economy and our bilateral business relationships with India will be an important aspect of that trip," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters.

"From a security standpoint, obviously Afghanistan and Pakistan and how that is all interrelated in that area of Asia, particularly with India, will be a big focus of what the President discusses with the (Indian) Prime Minister then," Gibbs said in response to a question.
 
Obama is scheduled to visit India in early November. Exact dates of his trip has not been announced yet.
 
Earlier, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake had termed President Obama's visit as 'landmark' and said that he foresee the great nations becoming ever closer in the years and decades to come.
 
"President Obama intends to make a landmark visit to India in November to help further grow the ties between our two knowledge societies, our economies, and our people," he said.
 
National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon, who was in Washington, had said the two countries were looking at establishing a long-term framework of Indo-US strategic partnership.
 
"The visit offers us an opportunity to put into place a longer term framework for India-US strategic partnership, and to add content to that partnership in several areas that are now ripe," Menon had said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think-tank.
 
Menon held consultations with top US officials on issues related to the visit of the US President to India.
 
Among others he met the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and his American counterpart, Gen (rtd) James Jones.