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The United States wants to build 'robust' military ties with India, encompassing arms sales, joint exercises and military education, US ambassador to India Robert Blackwill has said.
"I see a robust military-to-military exchange between India and the US based on its own merits...I think US-India in military relations has a big future," Blackwill said in an interview with The Indian Express newspaper.
"It is the kind of thing we have not done with anyone else in the world," he said.
Several upcoming visits by American defence and military officials would 'cement' the process of giving new shape to military ties between the two sides.
Blackwill said Admiral Dennis Blair, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, would soon visit New Delhi for talks on defence cooperation. He will be followed by Under Secretary for Defence Douglas Feith, who will lead the American side to a meeting of the India-US Defence Policy Group in December.
The envoy's comments came close of the heels of a report that New Delhi rejected a US proposal for a 'major military alliance', including the training of American troops on Indian soil and provision of Indian warships to escort US navy vessels in the Indian Ocean.
External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, however, dismissed the report, which broke while Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was in the US last week, as 'wonderful fiction'.
Blackwill, currently in Hawaii to discuss proposals for military cooperation with Admiral Blair, said President George W Bush and Vajpayee had directed officials of the two sides to take military relations 'forward in a substantial way'.
"The Indian government has indicated its interest in purchasing defence articles," Blackwill said, without providing details of the American hardware sought by New Delhi.
Recent reports have suggested that India is keen on acquiring technology and electronic systems for its Light Combat Aircraft programme, the indigenously developed Advanced Light Helicopter, gun locating radars and electronic warfare systems.
Bush and Vajpayee held talks in Washington November 9 when the Indian prime minister visited the US at the invitation of his American counterpart.
"Some summit meetings are extended photo-opportunities. The Vajpayee-Bush summit was very different. This was the most substantial summit in Indo-US relations," Blackwill said.
He asserted that Washington regarded fighting terrorism against India 'as a major part' of the global campaign aimed at destroying all terrorist networks.
Washington's dialogue with New Delhi would be 'far more focussed and unique than just a strategic dialogue, which is a more general process', Blackwill said. Such dialogues are in place with only 'very few countries', like Britain and Russia.
"Talks on nuclear systems will be part of the Defence Policy Group meeting in December, but there will be a separate channel to discuss them as India and the US talk on the subject for the first time as two nuclear states," he said.
Blackwill also endorsed India's claim to play a greater role in deciding the shape of a new government in Afghanistan.
"The US believes that India needs to be right in the middle of discussions in Afghanistan. There has been an enormous amount of diplomatic activity round the world on a post-Taleban Afghanistan and India is right in the middle of it and that is where the US wants India to be."
Indo-Asian News Service
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