Strategic ties with India to continue: Anthony Blinken

NEW DELHI: Secretary of state Anthony Blinken has said that the Biden administration would continue the strategic bilateral partnership with India in his Senate confirmation hearing. "India has been a bipartisan success story of our successive administrations," Blinken told members of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday.

“During the Obama administration, we deepened cooperation on defense procurement and information sharing, and the Trump administration carried that forward including its concept of Indo-Pacific and to make sure we were working with India so that no country in the region including China could challenge its sovereignty and also working with it on concerns that we share about terrorism," he said. Blinken said there were many ways the two countries could deepen the cooperation.

"Prime Minister Modi has been a very strong advocate of renewable energy and different technologies. I think there is very strong potential for our countries to work together," Blinken said. Diplomatic sources who did not either wished to be quoted told ET that Blinken had played key role in the success of Modi’s visit to the USAin 2016 during Obama’s presidency.

During the virtual Independence Day celebrations organised by the Biden Campaign, Blinken had batted for strong India-US relationship. "The Vice President (Biden) has long been a champion of stronger ties with India. I saw this firsthand, I started working for him in 2002 on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Then, of course, the Obama-Biden administration and his years as Vice President. "But if you go back 15 years, Joe Biden had a vision for the future of US-India relations. In 2006, he said, my dream is that in 2020, the two closest nations in the world will be India and the United States," Blinken said on August 15.