Washington: The potential of India-US relationship is greater than ever despite some differences and the alliance will deliver economic and security benefits for both the countries and broader region, US National Security Advisor Susan Rice has said.
Hours after US President Barack Obama delivered his second national security strategy to the Congress, Rice, 50, told a Washington audience that the new bonhomie in India-US ties is neither at the expense of others, nor to balance the power of another country in the region.
"I wouldn't put it that way," Rice said yesterday when asked about the National Security Strategy giving clear indication that the Obama administration will be working with India in the Asia Pacific region.
"I would say that these are two very important relationships that we're committed to building on but they're very different," Rice, who accompanied Obama to India last month, said at the Brookings Institute.
"President Obama's recent trip to India strengthened another critical relationship that will deliver economic and security benefits for both our nations and the broader region and will help lift up the lives of more than a billion people," Rice said.
"Where we can expand the scope for cooperation, we have demonstrated that potential is now greater than ever, we will do so, but I certainly wouldn't suggest that it will be without some elements of disagreement and divergence," Rice said.
It is about building the potential of both these important relationships to the extent possible. Even with India, we have had differences in the past and we'll continue to not see everything in exactly the same way, Rice said.
She said India had enormous and very real development challenges and it has a history in the international system that makes it different from that of America.
"Obviously our relationship with India, as the world's oldest democracy and the world's largest democracy, has the potential to be different, including with respect to shared values, and perhaps a broader convergence of some sense of interest. But it is not about pitting one against the other," she said.
In her opening remarks, Rice said Obama's trip to India, coming just three months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the US, was an example of another important large power relationship that the US intend to invest in.
