India Integral To U.S. Asia-Pacific Rebalance: U.S. Official


Washington: The U.S. has taken several steps to step up defence cooperation with India as it considers New Delhi integral to Washington’s ongoing Asia-Pacific rebalance thrust, said a top Pentagon official.

“From the conception of our new strategy, the United States has seen India as integral to a rebalance we’re undertaking not just to the Asia-Pacific region, but also within the region,” said outgoing Deputy Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter.

This was being done as the U.S. “complemented existing partnerships in Northeast Asia with new bilateral and multilateral collaboration in Southeast Asia and elsewhere”, he wrote in an op-ed article in the prestigious Foreign Policy magazine.

Carter, who along with India’s National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon, has been tasked by the two governments to give a new thrust to India-U.S. defence policy, said the two sides had worked hard to “overcome a historical legacy of differing approaches to defence”.

To step up defence cooperation with India, the U.S. had “already proposed to our Indian counterparts several promising ideas from U.S. industry”, he said.

These include what Carter called “an unprecedented offer, exclusive to India, to co-develop a next-generation anti-tank weapon that would address a key requirement for both of our armies.”

Also Read:
10 Countries Where Climate Change Kills The Most People
Child Adoption: Indian Children Find Home In U.S.

Source: IANS