New US legislation to acknowledge India as a “partner with equal status”
Tuesday, April 5th, 2016 10:04:28 by modousarr
A senior Pentagon official disclosed on Monday that the Obama Administration was working with Congress to pass a law that would acknowledge India as “a major partner of equal status”.
The source, head of the India Rapid Reaction Cell (IRRC) in the Pentagon, Duncan M. Lang, spoke to the Hindu newspaper in Washington, saying that the government was aiming to influence lawmakers into certifying the implementation of the US-India Defense Technology and Partnership Act.
Mr Lang added that the proposed legislation would “institutionalize”the Defense Technology and Trade Initiative framework (DTTI) and an India-specific cell in the Pentagon.
The IRRC head went on to say that “the resolution would formalize India’s status as a major partner of equal status for all congressional notifications”, and “that the proposed legislation enjoyed a strong bipartisan support and he believed it would soon be adopted.”
The Defense Secretary Ash Carter initiated the cell and was also the main founder of the DTTI, which was commenced in 2012 to facilitate the joint manufacturing of high technology programs.
India objected to US President, Barack Obama associating them with Pakistan in his statement during the nuclear summit in Washington last week. The Indian officials said that Mr Obama’s “lack of understanding” is the reason he associated India’s nuclear program with Pakistan’s.
The US president urged both countries to move towards the right direction saying, “…that while making military doctrines, Pakistan and India should ensure that they were not continually moving in the wrong direction”.
In his post-summit news conference, the US president responded to a question on the US and Russia limiting their nuclear arsenals saying “…both India and Pakistan needed to be more careful”.
A spokesman for Indian Ministry of External Affairs who was an attendee of the nuclear summit in Washington asserted that “India had never instigated military action against any neighbor” because it had “a no-first use” policy. He added that “New Delhi did not want its nuclear programme to be clubbed with Pakistan’s.”
Mr Swarap said, “Since the context was the Nuclear Security Summit, the President’s own remark that ‘expanding nuclear arsenals in some countries, with more small tactical nuclear weapons which could be at greater risk of theft’ sums up the focus of global concern”
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