Extract: SM Krishna’s remarks at Indo-US meet

“The global nature of the security challenges that we face today, particularly the threat posed by transnational terrorism, requires us to cooperate more closely than ever before. Though the epicenter of this threat lies in India’s neighborhood, it reaches far and wide all across the world, as we have seen time and again and most recently a few weeks back in Times Square. Given the fact that the groups who preach the ideology of hatred and violence are increasingly coalescing, sharing resources, and operating as one, it is incumbent upon all of us to focus our efforts laser-like on every one of them. Targeting only one out of such groups would only provide false comfort in the short term and will not assure in long term stability.”

“I am happy to note the tremendous progress that we have made in strengthening our counterterrorism cooperation, particularly since the Mumbai terror attack. We value the support we have received from the U.S. Government in our investigations. In this regard, access to our authorities to persons who have been apprehended by your government in connection with Mumbai terror attack is perhaps the logical next step. We are confident that our continued cooperation will lead to realization of this objective.”

“The conclusion of the negotiations on arrangements and procedures for reprocessing has taken us closer to realizing our objective of commencing commercial collaboration in nuclear energy with United States companies.”

“Another key area of our bilateral dialogue is cooperation in high technology. I am glad that we are working together to pave the way for liberalizing export control restrictions that are applied to India. Given the strategic nature of our partnership, and particularly at the conclusion of the Civil Nuclear Initiative, these controls are not only anomalous but also a hindrance to furthering trade and investment in this particularly significant sector of our economies. We look forward to early steps in this direction.”