India-US must work together to confront global challenges: PM

I / Washington November 24, 2009, 12:43 IST

Noting that there was growing "convergence" in national interests of India and the US, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the two countries "must work together" to effectively tackle the multiple challenges confronting the world.

"The India-US partnership can promote global cooperation in dealing with issues that the world has to face together, whether it is hunger, global security and terrorism, nuclear disarmament, climate change or spread of pandemics," he said.

Singh said he saw the future of the India-US partnership with "confidence and optimism".

"There is a growing convergence in our national interests, both within bilateral framework and on regional and global issues," the Prime Minister said in his address to the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington-based think tank.

The changes in global economic and political structures and the growing interdependence among nations today offer the two countries an opportunity to look beyond bilateral engagement "to establish a strategic partnership of global dimensions," he said in the presence of city's top intellectuals.

"If we are to effectively tackle the multiple challenges that confront the world, India and the United States, as two leading democracies, must work together," he asserted, adding the immediate challenge before the two countries is to bring the world to full recovery from global economic crisis.

The Prime Minister noted that India and the US have strong compulsions to work towards an open and liberal regime for transfers of goods, services, investments and technology.

This will stimulate recovery in the global economy, create jobs and spur growth in their economies, he said.

Singh said India and the US can work together with other countries in the region to create an open and inclusive regional architecture in the Asia-Pacific.

"The India-US partnership can contribute to an orderly transition to the new order and be an important factor for global peace and stability," he said.

Both India and the US, Singh said, draw strength from their common values of respect for cultural diversity, democracy, freedom of expression and the rule of law.

"Our two nations have been shaped by the thoughts and ideals of two apostles of peace of the 20th century, Mahatma Gandhi and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. We should advance these ideals as fundamental rights of all people," the Prime Minister said.