INDIA-U.S. RELATIONS
(Continued from page 1)

In the new century, India and the United States will be
partners in peace, with a common interest in and
complementary responsibility for ensuring regional and
international security. We will engage in regular con-
sultations on, and work together for, strategic stability
in Asia and beyond. We will bolster joint efforts to
counter terrorism and meet other challenges to re-
gional peace. We will strengthen the international se-
curity system, including in the United Nations, and
support the United Nations in its peacekeeping efforts.
We acknowledge that tensions in South Asia can only
be resolved by the nations of South Asia. India is com-
mitted to enhancing cooperation, peace and stability in
the region.

India and the United States share a commitment to
reducing and ultimately eliminating nuclear weapons,
but we have not always agreed on how to reach this
common goal. The United States believes India should
forgo nuclear weapons. India believes that it needs to
maintain a credible minimum nuclear deterrent in keep-
ing with its own assessment of its security needs. None-
theless, India and the U.S. are prepared to work to-
gether to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons
and their means of delivery. To this end, we will persist
with and build upon the productive bilateral dialogue
already underway.

We reaffirm our respective voluntary commitments to
forgo further nuclear explosive tests. We will work
together and with others for an early commencement of
negotiations on a treaty to end the production of fissile
materials for nuclear weapons. We have both shown
strong commitments to export controls, and will con-
tinue to strengthen them. We will work together to
prevent the spread of dangerous technologies. We are
committed to build confidence and reduce the chances
of miscalculation. We will pursue our security needs in
a restrained and responsible manner, and will not en-
gage in nuclear and missile arms races. We will seek to
narrow our differences and increase mutual under-
standing on non-proliferation and security issues. This
will help us to realize the full potential of Indo-U.S.
relations and contribute significantly to regional and
global security.

The true measure of our strength lies in the ability of
our people to shape their destiny and to realize their
aspirations for a better life. That is why the United
States and India are and will be allies in the cause of
democracy. We will share our experience in nurturing
and strengthening democratic institutions the world
over and fighting the challenge to democratic order
from forces such as terrorism. We will cooperate with
others to launch an international Community of De-
mocracies this year.

2 INDIA NEWS « April 2000

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The United States applauds India’s success in opening
its economy, its achievements in science and technol-
ogy, its commitment to a new wave of economic ex-
pansion and reform, and its determination to bring the
benefits of economic growth to all its people. Our na-
tions pledge to reduce impediments to bilateral trade
and investment and to expand commerce between us,
especially in the emerging knowledge-based industries
and high-technology areas.

We will work together to preserve stability and growth
in the global economy as well. And we will join in an
unrelenting battle against poverty in the world, so that
the promise of a new economy is felt everywhere and
no nation is left behind. That is among the fundamental
challenges of our time. Opening trade and resisting
protectionism are the best means for meeting it. We
support an open, equitable and transparent rule-based
multilateral trading system, and we will work together
to strengthen it. We agree that developed countries
should embrace policies that offer developing countries
the opportunity to grow, because growth is the key to
rising incomes and rising standards. At the same time,
we share the conviction that human development also
requires empowerment of people and availability of
basic freedoms.

As leaders in the forefront of the new high-technology
economy, we recognize that countries can achieve ro-
bust economic growth while protecting the environ-
ment and taking action to combat climate change. We
will do our part to meet the global environmental chal-
lenges, including climate change and the impacts of air
and water pollution on human health.

We also pledge a common effort to battle the infectious
diseases that kill people and retard progress in so
many countries. India is at the forefront of the global
effort that has brought us to the threshold of the eradi-
cation of polio. With leadership, joint research, and
application of modern science, we can and will do the
same for the leading killers of our time, including AIDS,
malaria and tuberculosis.

We are proud of the cooperation between Indians and
Americans in advancing frontiers of knowledge. But
even as we unravel the mysteries of time and space, we
must continue to apply our knowledge to older chal-
lenges: eradicating human suffering, disease and pov-
erty. In the past, our cooperation helped ease mass
hunger in the world. In the future, it will focus as well
on the development of clean energy, health, and edu-
cation.

Our partnership is not an end in itself, but a means to
all these ends. And it is reinforced by the ties of schol-
arship, commerce, and increasingly of kinship among
our people. The industry, enterprise and cultural con-
tributions of Americans of Indian heritage have en-
tiched and enlivened both our societies.

Sec INDIA-US RELATIONS, Page 4