The Hindu : National : Burns meets Narayanan, Montek

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 26, 2005

National

National

Burns meets Narayanan, Montek

Diplomatic Correspondent

George Bush "looking forward" to hosting Manmohan Singh next month

NEW DELHI: Visiting United States Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns met National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan, Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission M.S. Ahluwalia and former National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra on Saturday.

Mr. Burns, who is here to prepare for the July 18 meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W. Bush in Washington, had met Mr. Narayanan on Monday in Washington.

When asked on Friday evening what agreements were likely to be concluded, Mr. Burns told presspersons: ``We believe that there will be concrete achievements from it, but I would not be a very good diplomat if I announce those... before July 18. So I think the Prime Minister and the President should be given the privilege and the opportunity to announce those results ... '' He also said that Mr. Bush was ``very much looking forward'' to hosting the Prime Minister in July. ``We expect this to be one of the most consequential summits in the history of our relationship, going back to the independence of your country.''

``There is more on the agenda right now than there has ever been before and the relationship is qualitatively different; qualitatively different because we not only have the fact that the United States — the leading trade partner, the leading investor in India — has a very active commercial relationship ... We have a defence relationship of the type we have never had before. We have a political engagement in this region where, of course, we talk to India about all of the problems of this region and have good cooperation with India,'' Mr. Burns added.

In Washington, a senior American official was quoted by PTI as saying that the ``immediate goal'' of the U.S. was to postpone the G-4 resolution, which wants six permanent members and four non-permanent members added to the United Nations' Security Council.

Mr. Dibble claimed that the G-4 move was strongly opposed by a number of countries and the U.S. was engaged in a dialogue with the G-4 and with the other permanent members of the Security Council.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National