Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has dismissed concerns over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Russia, saying the US cannot test India’s loyalty every five minutes.
Speaking at IndusX (India-United States Defense Acceleration Ecosystem), he described India-US relations as enduring and bipartisan and stressed that whoever comes to the White House knows the importance of this relationship.
“As India says, all countries want strategic autonomy and I have no problem with that. But it is our (US and India’s) deeper interests that will ultimately lead to a stronger partnership,” he said.
Rice, director of Stanford’s Hoover Institution, described Russian military equipment as “junk” and said that PM Modi’s visit to Moscow would not lead to any significant progress in defence. She also indicated that the US believes it has been slow in expanding military cooperation with India and has lost some crucial time and opportunities.
He also said that Prime Minister Modi is aware of the close relationship between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and this could pose a big challenge for India.
Describing China as America’s formidable rival, Rice said the situation is even more serious than the Cold War because Moscow is a great country militarily but is a dwarf technologically and economically, while China has taken advantage of technology and has become so well integrated into global networks and supply chains that it is a difficult situation to deal with.
Rice played a key role in advancing the India-US civil nuclear agreement under the George W. Bush administration.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited both Russia and Ukraine in the last three months. He also spoke to Putin on August 27, soon after his visit to Ukraine, where he met President Volodymyr Zelensky.
India has stressed that it will support any viable and mutually acceptable solution or format that can restore peace between the two warring countries. Sources have said that National Security Advisor Ajit Doval will visit Moscow this week to hold discussions aimed at resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
