Washington, July 8 (Inditop.com) Describing India as an “emerging global power”, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said Washington was working hard to create a “very deep and broad strategic engagement” with New Delhi.
“I’m very much looking forward to my trip next week,” she told reporters Tuesday. “We are working hard with our Indian counterparts to create a very deep and broad strategic engagement.”
Clinton said she hoped “to announce our intentions when I’m in India, and that we will be cooperating and working together across the broadest range of concerns that our two governments have ever engaged on”.
The top US diplomat said she was “very hopeful that the relationship between the United States and India, which has improved considerably over the last 15 years, continues on the path that we’re on”.
“India is an emerging global power,” said Clinton, who is making her first visit to India since becoming the Secretary of State in January, noting the recent election returning the coalition led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to power “has provided political stability”.
The new Indian government, she said, was committed “to look for ways that India can play a role regionally and globally on the economic issues and other matters that confront us”.
At home it “is very committed to pursuing a very activist domestic agenda, particularly around poverty and the conditions of people in rural India, as well as its emphasis on development and job creation”, she said.
“So I’m very excited,” said Clinton, noting: “I was thrilled to go to India for the first time as First Lady and to begin a process that has led us to this point with the contributions of many along the way that really demonstrates that the world’s largest democracy and oldest democracy have so much more in common than perhaps was first recognised.”
