Washington, Nov 20: The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, has described his forthcoming visit to Washington as one that would “renew” India’s partnership with the U.S. “We are strategic partners,” Dr. Singh said in an interview.
India will seek a “liberal” regime of technology transfer from the U.S. and an early operationalisation of the civil nuclear deal, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said ahead of his visit here next week.
Terming the US and India as “strategic partners,” Dr. Singh said renewing partnership with a new administration and identifying new areas of cooperation will be an important part of his visit as the first state guest of President Barack Obama.
“We are strategic partners. We have good relations. But there is a new administration in America. So it is appropriate that I should renew our partnership,” Dr. Singh said in an interview ahead of his visit that begins on Sunday.
Describing the Indo-US civil nuclear deal as a landmark agreement, Dr. Singh said India would like to operationalise it and ensure its objectives are realised in full.
“My hope is that we can persuade the US administration to be more liberal when it comes to transferring technologies to us. The restrictions make no sense. India has an impeccable record of not participating in any proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. So that’s my number one concern,” he said.
He said India and the U.S. could be partners in refocusing attention on an “equitable, balanced global order”.
“We would like to strengthen energy cooperation with the United States — (in) clean coal technology and in renewable energy resources,” he said.
Dr. Singh said India would also like to have cooperation in the field of agriculture, where it wants to achieve a second Green Revolution to attain food security.
“We would like to have a second Green Revolution in our country — therefore, cooperation in the field of agriculture, in science and technology, in health, and in dealing with pandemics,” he said.
Asked what he expects to achieve on his visit, Dr. Singh said besides nuclear cooperation, he wanted greater cooperation in education, closer linkages between the university systems of the two countries and cooperation in health that includes “working together to devise new vaccines”.
Noting that climate change is a responsibility of all humanity, he said developed countries had an obligation to perform on reduction of carbon emissions.
“I hope that Copenhagen will reaffirm that. Without the US giving a lead, I don’t see a deal at Copenhagen that can become a reality… We recognise our own responsibilities… We have put in place a national action plan to deal with climate change,” he said.
On India’s relations with China, Dr. Singh said there is enough space in the world to accommodate the ambitions of both countries.
He also said that the two countries have a long pending border dispute, which they are trying to resolve through dialogue.
–PTI