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US acknowledges rhetoric has to match action :
1 Hour,48 minutes Ago
[India News] New Delhi, In a tacit acknowledgement that its avowed intention to make India a "world power" has not impressed most Indians, the US has said that it has to match rhetoric with action.
"We must match the rhetoric of our aspirations with a programme to realise them. Both of our great nations must take substantive - and occasionally difficult -- steps to move away from past prejudices and practices into a new world of cooperation and partnership," US Ambassador to India David Mulford said in a statement released by the embassy Thursday.
"It is now official. It is the policy of the United States to help India become a major world power in the 21st century," he said and added this was what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice conveyed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during her recent visit to India.
Most Indian political parties have criticised what they consider the patronising tone of the US offer and described it as an attempt to assuage Delhi over Washington's decision to sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan - a "great disappointment" in the words of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Mulford however described the US move as an "exciting turning point to years of hard work to transform the U.S.-India bilateral relationship into a true strategic partnership."
Rice's visit was to share with the Indian leadership "a vision for a decisively broader strategic relationship, to help India achieve its goals as one of the world's great multiethnic democracies," he said.
"This vision embraces cooperation on a global strategy for peace, on defence, on energy, and on economic growth. It is now clear what she meant by this", he said.
According to the envoy, there is no fundamental conflict or disagreement between the US and India on any important regional and global issue.
"We work closely together in countering terrorism, share the view that extremist governments have no place in the international system, cooperate in fighting health issues such as HIV/AIDS and polio, and work together to build a much stronger economic relationship", he said.
He said the two countries were poised for a partnership that will be crucial in shaping the international order in the 21st century.
The Next Steps in the Strategic Partnership (NSSP) initiative launched by the two countries last year helped build trust and cooperation in sensitive areas - civilian nuclear technology, civil space technology, high-technology trade, and a dialogue on missile defense, he said and added "important progress" had been made in each of these areas.
"Secretary Rice shared with her Indian interlocutors the President's vision that the United States and India must broaden this cooperation to help us achieve our shared objective - making India the global power it can and should be," he added.
He said the US-India dialogue would not only address important global and regional security problems, but would move "much deeper into engagement on India's defence requirements, including discussion of co-production and addressing India's concern about the United States as a reliable supplier."
Mulford also said that many of the legal hurdles which have prevented the US from actively supporting India still remain aka long way to go till we reach that point.