Hillary seeks to put India at ease

The US secretary of state Hillary Clinton will get down to the task of taking India-US strategic ties to the next level when she meets prime minister Manmohan Singh, Union minister for external affairs SM Krishna and Congress president Sonia Gandhi here on Monday. She is also scheduled to meet leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha LK Advani.

Unlike in Mumbai, where she focused on people-to-people issues like education and business, and met with self-help groups like Sewa, in the capital a major part of her meetings will be with India’s political establishment, on strategic and regional issues.

Clinton’s primary task will be to drive home president Barack Obama’s message — that India is important to the US and the current administration is keen to continue the relationship forged by former president George Bush. Ties between the two nations had warmed during her husband Bill Clinton’s second term, and had taken several steps forward with the signing of the nuclear deal during the Republican administration.

The US wants to reassure India that nurturing this relationship is an integral part of the administration’s Asia policy; while China remains important, India is also pivotal for the region’s stability.  

This is not to say there are no differences between the two countries. Pakistan remains a major irritant. While India understands US’s desire to stabilise Pakistan and get the army to fight the Taliban and jihadi forces, New Delhi wants Washington to ensure that Islamabad acts against anti-India groups that the ISI has long nurtured; in short, more pressure on Pakistan.

India is certain to take up the issue of Hafiz Saeed, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa leader who remains free despite the United Nations Security Council’s proscription.

Clinton has obviously got the message. She made it a point to emphasise in Mumbai and New Delhi that the US is watching actions taken by Islamabad. She said Pakistan houses a ‘syndicate of terrorism’, and emphasised that terrorism was a threat to all, including those who have given haven to such elements, and every country should stand up to defeat the menace.

“We are certainly watching and expecting that there will be justice and those who launched the horrific attacks in Mumbai will meet their day of reckoning,” she said at an interaction with the press here.

But she evaded a question on whether she felt that the ISI was as committed to fight terror as the rest of the Pakistan establishment. Saying that action against Taliban had the consent of the government and it permeated to the bottom, she refused to go beyond that.

Singh and external affairs minister SM Krishna will brief Clinton and her team on talks in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, between India and Pakistan. Singh’s gesture in engaging with Pakistan, egged on by Washington, will come in for praise from Clinton.

Terror talk apart, three agreements are on the anvil, but only two are likely to be sealed — the science and technology safeguards agreement on space launchers and a joint fund for science research.

Officials on both sides are tight-lipped on the third — the defence deal — mainly because the end-use monitoring pact for transfer of dual technology is incomplete.

Quibbling over certain issues such as online certification and inspections continue. When the end-use verification deal is done, it will open the floodgates for defence sales from the US.

“Our bilateral ties have been transformed. We consider relations with the US substantive with a broad canvas, starting from anti-terror co-operation to security, energy, agriculture and people-to-people ties,’’ an Indian official said. “Talks on climate change, global trade and regional issues will be on the table.”

With Clinton clarifying that the India-US nuclear deal is a standalone agreement, meaning that the G8 statement on transfer of technology does not hold, officials of the two countries are due to meet in Vienna next week for talks on reprocessing American-origin spent fuel.