United States President Barack Obama vowed to build a 'true global, strategic partnership' with India and stressed on advancing bilateral economic ties and making progress on nuclear security efforts, when he dropped in during key talks between National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon and his US counterpart Tom Donilon. "The President joined the meeting (between Menon and Donilon) and reaffirmed his commitment to building a true partnership with India,"the White House said
Describing India as a 'great power', the United States has said it has deepened its ties with New Delhi, including through the extraordinary trip of President Barack Obama to the country in November last year. "We fully embraced India's rise as a great power and a great partner for the United States," US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon said. Donilon said the US so far has been under-involved in Asia and Obama is all set to correct that.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accorded Richard Verma a rousing farewell at the State Department's ornate Thomas Jefferson Room. He exited after more than two years of serving as her principal Congressional affairs advisor in his capacity of assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs.
Menon arrived in Washington to review the implementation of initiatives launched during the November visit of US President Barack Obama to India.
Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee met United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Security Adviser Tom Donilon to discuss bilateral and regional issues.
US President Barack Obama would hold his sixth Situation Room meeting with his national security team on Monday to discuss his administrations strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Susan Rice, the tough-talking United States Ambassador to the UN, was named as President Barack Obama's new National Security Advisor, in a significant shakeup to the White House foreign policy team.
"The goal is to have an Afghanistan again that has a degree of stability such that forces like Al Qaeda and associated groups cannot have safe haven unimpeded, which could threaten the region and threaten US and other interests in the world," US National Security Advisor Tom Donilon said, outlining the issues that would figure at the key summit.
The first high-level meeting between the two countries after the November visit of US President Barack Obama to India, Menon's Washington trip is considered as a preparatory one for the next round of India-US Strategic Dialogue to be held in New Delhi in April.
During the meetings, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Special Envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan S K Lambah and the top US officials discussed the progress made in Afghanistan so far and how the two countries can work together to achieve their common objective of defeat al Qaeda and the Taliban, and help in the emergence of a stable and democratic Afghanistan.
US President Barack Obama arrived in India on Saturday on a three-day visit during which about 18 announcements are expected to be made on a wide range of areas covering economy, security and political spheres including possible easing of export controls on dual use items.
General James Jones (retired), President Barack Obama's national security adviser, announced his decision to step down from his position, which would be taken over by his deputy Tom Donilon.
At the USIBC event the president will refer to the "significant" deals between the US and India that are "being consummated." One of these deals, sources have said, will be the sale of Boeing C-17 aircraft to the Indian military. Obama's announcement of this deal would clearly be meant for consumption back home.
Prominent among those accompanying the US president would include Tom Donilon, the new national security advisor; the commerce secretary, Gary Locke; the agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack; and Raj Shah, administrator of USAID
"We've had differences with Pakistan. There was some support network in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which supported bin Laden. We haven't seen evidence that the government knew about that, but they need to investigate that, and they need to provide us with intelligence, by the way, from the compound, that they've gathered, including access to Osama bin Laden's three wives, whom they have in custody," White House National Security Advisor Tom Donilon said.
United States President Barack Obama's confidant Susan Rice, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, has joined the White House as the national security advisor.
Spread over two days -- Friday and Saturday -- at a picturesque desert resort in Southern California, Obama, 51, and Xi, 59, had several rounds of meetings and a candle-lit dinner spread over nearly eight hours on a range of bilateral, regional and global issues.
Manmohan Singh had told his team to "call off" the Indo-US civil nuclear deal a night before its scheduled announcement by President George Bush after Americans came with a killer proposal to let India have just two of its nuclear reactors out of the international safeguards, a top aide of the former Prime Minister has said.
Barack Obama has said that he had ruled out involving Pakistan in the raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout because it was an "open secret" that certain elements inside Pakistan's military, and especially its intelligence services, maintained links to the Taliban and perhaps even al-Qaeda, sometimes using them as strategic assets against Afghanistan and India.
Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com listens to four Indian and American national security advisers recalling the hard work that went into negotiating the nuclear deal.