India Stands Ready To Defend Its Territory

I arrived yesterday on an official visit to the United States and will be heretill Sunday, January 20. I am grateful to Secretary Rumsfeld for his graciousinvitation and for arranging the very wide ranging discussion that our twodelegations conducted today. I had the honour of being received this afternoonby the United States Vice-President, Mr. Richard Cheney and also helddiscussions with the US National Security Adviser, Dr. Condolezza Rice and USState Department with Deputy Secretary of State, Mr. Richard Armitage.

The purpose of this visit to the United States was to discuss issues of defencecooperation between the US and India and those of immediate concern in thesub-continent as well as our cooperation in the global campaign againstterrorism with the leadership of the United States. This purpose has been fullyserved by today’s meetings.

My discussions also provided me an opportunity to review military-to-militaryrelationship between the two countries which has not only been revived duringthe last one year but also been expanded considerably. Today this relationshipis qualitatively different from the days of Cold War. After SecretaryRumsfeld’s visit to India in November 2001, we held a successful meeting ofthe Defence Policy Group(DPG) after a gap of four years. The next meeting of theGroup is to be held in May 2002 and before that we will have a meeting ofExecutive Steering Groups as well as joint exercises between the two armedforces. We have also recently signed the General Security on MilitaryInformation Agreement (GSOMIA) which will facilitate the transfer of classifiedUS military information to India.

The issue of defence supplies to India which form an important part of ourrelationship was also reviewed during our discussion today. Several pendingcases of supplies of defence equipments and spare parts from US to India, suchas engines and other systems of the Light Combat Aircraft and Weapons LocatingRadar were discussed. We have been assured that these licenses are in anadvanced stage of processing with the US authorities and final decisions areexpected to be conveyed shortly.

As two multi-ethnic, multi-religious open democratic societies India and theUnited States share a unique perspective against global terrorism and the eventsof the last three months have deepened our understanding of each others’concerns. India appreciates the strong stand taken by the United States’leadership after September 11 and has fully supported the campaign launched byPresident Bush to end terror wherever it exists.

I shared with the US leadership the deep concern and anger of the Indian peopleafter the attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13. That attempt, whichwas foiled by our security forces, struck at the most cherished values of ourdemocracy and was aimed to liquidate the entire political leadership of thecountry. The people of India cannot accept such acts of terrorism any more. Wehave been pushed beyond our threshold of tolerance. Our resolve is fullyunderstood in Washington.

Naturally the situation in South Asia also came up for discussion, I conveyedour perspective on the situation in the light of the recent statement made bythe President of Pakistan. Measures that have been announced will have to beeffectively and fully implemented so as to permanently end infiltration andsponsorship of terrorism from Pakistan or territories under its control intoIndia. One measure of Pakistan’s sincerity will be its willingness to handover 20 well known terrorists whose names along with abundant evidence of crimesagainst India have been handed over to the Government of Pakistan.

Meanwhile, India stands ready to defend its territory and our armed forces arecommitted to this task. De-escalation of forces can come only when cross-borderterrorism has been effectively stopped. Let me add that we are hoping thatthings will move in the right direction quickly and we have undertaken intensediplomatic action to resolve the issue peacefully.

Given the shared strategic interest in Asia and beyond between our two countriesand the common democratic traditions, we are confident that a growing defenceand security cooperation between our two countries will serve the interests offreedom, global peace, economic progress and security. A strengthened strategicrelationship is keeping with the commitment of the two countries toqualitatively transform Indo-US relations in pursuance of many common goals inAsia and beyond and form a critical part of the wide ranging bilateral dialoguearchitecture established in March 2000.