Viewing India as a "rising global power", the US on Monday pitched for its greater role in international affairs and meeting the challenges in South Asia, including bringing about stability of Afghanistan.
Launching the first-ever Indo-US Strategic Dialogue along with External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said America felt that India had not
"fully embraced" its role in regional and global affairs and indicated support for India's aspirations for permanent seat in the expanded UN Security Council.
She sought to dispel "doubts" that the US sees India "only or mainly in the context of Afghanistan and Pakistan" and that America "will hasten our departure from Afghanistan leaving India to deal with the aftermath."
During the Strategic Dialogue, the two sides discussed situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan region and ways to step up cooperation in a wide range of areas, including security,
defence, nuclear energy, climate change, education and agriculture.
"India is a rising global power and already a regional power in Asia. Thus more the need to work closely with India to meet the immediate challenges in the neighborhood including
Afghanistan," she said in her opening remarks.
"India and the US must play a leading role in shaping the destiny of the 21st century," he said.
Hailing India's contribution towards rebuilding of Afghanistan, Clinton said New Delhi has stakes in the future of the trouble-torn country.
"In this dialogue, we will confront regional issues, most importantly securing Afghanistan's future. India and the US and countries of the world have a stake in Afghanistan and India's contribution to Afghanistan's future, including 1.3 billion dollar assistance have been positive and significant,"
she said.
She talked about "doubts in America that India hasn't fully embraced its role in regional and global affairs or will not make the economic reforms needed to faster additional progress.
"So with this dialogue, the level of confidence that we have established by ourselves, we will confront these concerns directly and candidly."
In his opening remarks, Krishna said, "We both have an abiding interest in a stable international order and in the maintenance of peace and stability in Asia and beyond, and a
tremendous opportunity is now before us to work together to achieve this objective."
"India's certainly be a factor in any future
consideration of the reforms" of the United Nations Security Council, Clinton said.
Krishna noted that the institution of the Strategic Dialogue was a reflection of the deepening and broadening of our relations between the two countries.
In her unusually lengthy speech - lasting more than 13 minutes -- Clinton touched upon a wide range of issues from counter-terrorism to climate change, clean energy, food security, international security, bilateral cooperation in the education sector, the civilian nuclear deal and went on to praise India's role in Afghanistan.
She assured the Indian delegation that the US is well aware of India's concerns in the region, Afghanistan in particular and would work with New Delhi to address those.
Noting that both India and the US have been "seared by acts of terrorism", Clinton said security is the top priority between the two countries.
She said the two countries will have to increase their cooperation in counter-terrorism by better intelligence sharing and trainning first responders to make "our own homelands safer".
The Secretary of State said the US is committed to modernisation of Indian military and referred to the little known fact that the US has the largest number of its military exercises with India.
Observing that the government to government ties is lagging behind the people to people relationship, Clinton said it is time that "New Delhi and Washington" must catch up with
"New York and Mumbai."
Krishna said the global nature of the security challenges being faced today, particularly the threat posed by transnational terrorism, requires the two countries to
cooperate more closely than ever before.
"Though the epicenter of this threat lies in India's neighborhood, it reaches far and wide all across the world as we have seen time and again and most recently a few weeks back in Times Square," he said in an apparent reference to
Pakistan.
"Given the fact that the groups who preach the ideology of hatred and violence are increasingly coalescing, sharing resources and operating as one, it is incumbent upon
all of us, to focus our efforts laser-like on every one of them," he said.
Targeting only one or other of such groups would only provide false comfort in the short term and will not usher in long term stability," he said in an obvious reference to
Pakistan's inability to act against LeT, blamed for the Mumbai attacks.