Historic change in US-India ties a key achievement: Rice

     WASHINGTON: Terming the "historic transformation" of the US' ties with the "rising democratic power" India as among its key strategic accomplishments, the Bush administration has said it will enable Washington to advance its "interests and values" in the region in future.

     "There are other strategic accomplishments in Asia... partnerships with a newly democratic Afghanistan, a democratic Pakistan, and an historic transformation of our relationship with the rising democratic power, India," US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said addressing the The Heritage Foundation.

     Rice was at the conservative think tank to speak about US' ties with Asia during the Bush administration with much of her comments focussed on East and North East Asia.

     "... at the beginning of our Administration, it was a bit rocky in Asia. Tensions were rising across the Taiwan Strait. U.S.-China relations were strained by the downed EP-3 plane.

     "Violence in Kashmir was pulling India and Pakistan toward conflict. A failed state in Afghanistan was a source of regional and, as we found out, global instability. And North Korea, illicitly pursuing a uranium enrichment capability, announced its withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, threw international inspectors out of the country, and began once again to produce plutonium" Rice said in her opening remarks.

     "These actions contributed to rising tensions across Asia, but most importantly in Northeast Asia, the most dynamic part of the region and, historically, the most volatile.

     Since 2001, Rice said, the United States has improved its relationship with every state in Northeast Asia simultaneously.

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