US considers India as a partner in non-proliferation

The Obama administration has said it sees India as a partner in its global non-proliferation efforts, and no more as a target. It has also observed that the Asian country has an important role in strengthening the regime to check the spread of nuclear weapons.

"One of the criticisms in the past has been that US sometimes regarded India more as a target than a partner in non-proliferation. I think the steps President (Obama) announced in the course of this visit showed definitely that we now see India as a partner in the global non-proliferation space

"Not only in terms of the actions, but also in terms of our growing efforts in the nuclear area," Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Robert Blake said here yesterday just days after President Obama's historic visit to India.

Blake said that during the visit, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Obama announced that Center for a Nuclear Energy Partnership will be built by India.

He said the US sees it as a very important area for cooperation and are looking forward to working in new areas such as nuclear smuggling.

He further added that India can play such an important role in  strengthening the overall non-proliferation regime.

Blake denied that India not signing the military interoperability agreements during this trip was a setback to the Indo-US relationship.

"We'll continue to work on those, but we're not pressuring India. When India feels the time is right to negotiate and  finalise these agreements, that will be fine with us," he said.

Blake said now that organisations such as DRDO have come off the list of the Entities List there are new opportunities to cooperate together in defence sales.

"Of course, there's the very important multi-role combat aircraft contract that is still going on. Already we've seen a tremendous amount of new  business between the two countries on the defence side," he said.

"I think that as those contracts multiply, India will see it as in its own interest to sign these agreements, which, after all, we have with many, many partners around the world. These are not unique to India.

"In that way, they will become a bit more demystified, and it will be clear that it is in India's interest do this. But, again, we're not pressuring India to do this. They will do this when they feel comfortable. And we're pleased to work with them, Blake said.