India, U.S. agree on defence cooperation

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, APRIL 8. The visiting Minister for External Affairs and Defence, Mr. Jaswant Singh, and the U.S. Secretary of State, Gen. Colin Powell, in addition to proliferation, trade and regional issues also discussed Indonesia, Sri Lanka and ``quite a lot of economics'' as it pertained to bilateral relations, the State Department spokesman, Mr. Richard Boucher, has said.

Talking to reporters after the working lunch meeting, preceded by a private interaction, between the two leaders here on Friday, Mr. Boucher said the issue of sanctions and its effects were discussed in general terms.

Mr. Singh pointed out that in the last three years India had not broached the subject of sanctions but said Gen. Powell had asked for his views. ``I told him that I do not find the sanctions have served the national interests of either India or the United States; that it is for them to decide what to do. The entire sanctions regime, to our mind, is counter-productive, both economically and otherwise.''

Besides the meetings at the White House and at the State Department, a critical component of Mr. Singh's agenda was his interaction with the Defence Secretary, Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, at the Pentagon. A Guard of Honour, which was to have preceded the meeting, did not take place because of the rain, and Mr. Singh said he missed it. The substantive discussions with Mr. Rumsfeld, however, seemed to have more than made up.

By all accounts the discussion was extremely cordial, perhaps something not witnessed in bilateral relations for a very long time. Mr. Rumsfeld had met the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister and National Security Adviser, Mr. Brajesh Mishra, in Munich recently during a multilateral conference, but the atmosphere at the Pentagon on Friday was said to have been quite different.

It was the first meeting between a Defence Minister and a U.S. Defence Secretary since 1992 and Mr. Singh later made it clear to mediapersons that his visit to the Pentagon was not simply an ``appendage'' of the meeting at the State Department. It ``stands on its own'', he said.

Mr. Rumsfeld, a known hawk in the Bush administration had been sharply critical of the Russia-India cooperation in the nuclear sector; and not too long ago had clubbed India in the ``rogue state'' category. But during his meeting with Mr. Singh, the Defence Secretary pointed out that while the lifting of sanctions was the domain of the State Department, there would be no objections from the Pentagon as far as India was concerned.

In terms of enhanced defence cooperation between the two countries, Mr. Singh mentioned three specifics agreed upon: first, that there would be a dialogue between the U.S. Defence Secretary and the Defence Minister similar to the one between the State Department and the External Affairs Ministry.

There would also be an exchange of visits between the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. and the Joint Chiefs of Staff of India. Other agreements had also been worked out, details of which would be released after Mr. Singh's consultations with the Prime Minister and Cabinet colleagues.

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