Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and U.S. President Barack Obama Thursday held their first joint talks and agreed to build up strategic partnership in all areas, including fighting terrorism.
During the talks, Dr. Manmohan Singh made clear that Pakistan must show total honesty in bringing the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack to book before the talks can be resumed between the two countries.
'We discussed development in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We both agreed that our two countries must work together to counter the forces of terror,' Manmohan Singh replied when asked about his first meeting with President Obama on the sidelines of the G20 summit here.
'We have a international considered partnership with the US. We both have agreed that there are enormous opportunities to strengthen this relationship and to make it more fruitful and strong.'
He described the discussion as 'useful and fruitful' that focused on development of joint relations and how problems of the region can be resolved by interaction between the two countries.
Apart from the global financial condense, the two leaders discussed the entire group of bilateral, regional and global issues, including terrorism, energy security, climate change and the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
US will go after Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan after consulting with Islamabad but does not aim to use combat troops on the ground there, President Barack Obama said in an interview.
"If we have a high-value target within our sights, after consulting with Pakistan, we're going after them," Obama said in an interview broadcast on CBS's "Face the Nation" program.
Asked if that meant putting US troops on the ground in Pakistan, Obama said: "No. Our plan does not change the recognition of Pakistan as a sovereign government. We need to work with them and through them to deal with Al Qaeda. But we have to hold them much more accountable."
Obama made his comments in an interview conducted on Friday, the day he announced a new war strategy for Afghanistan that called for the elimination of Al Qaeda militants he said were plotting attacks on the United States from the rough region along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier.
The plan called for another 4,000 US troops to help train the Afghan army, in addition to the 17,000 combat troops he ordered to Afghanistan ahead of elections in August. Spending on the conflict is expected to rise 60 percent from the current $2 billion per month, officials said.
"What we want to do is to refocus attention on Al-Qaeda," Obama said. "We are going to root out their networks, their bases. We are going to make sure that they cannot attack U.S. citizens, U.S. soil, U.S. interests and our allies' interests around the world," he said.
The approach seeks to make trust and improve ties with an ally that Washington has at times supported and at times ignored but now sees as critical in the fight against the militant group that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, U.S. officials said.
To plant Al Qaeda, Obama said, the United States had to ensure it could not find a base in Afghanistan or Pakistan from which to organize attacks. He said Washington also needed to convince average Pakistanis that the struggle with extremists was not just a U.S. war.
"One of the concerns that we've had building up over the last several years is a notion, I think, among the average Pakistani, that this is somehow America's war and they are not invested," Obama said.
US has made it clear that it would turn clear of the Kashmir issue as it seeks to engage India and other key stakeholders in the region in its new policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
'We don't intend to get mixed up in that issue,' President Barack Obama's National Security Adviser, Gen James Jones, told reporters Friday when asked if the US expected to address issues between India and Pakistan, particularly Kashmir, as part of its new regional come up to.
'But we do intend to help both India and Pakistan build more trust and confidence so that Pakistan can address the issues that it confronts on the western side of the nation,' he said referring to Pakistan's tribal areas which Obama and other US officials have described as terrorist safe havens.
'But no, Kashmir is a unconnected issue,' Jones said. 'But we think that the times are so serious that we need to build the trust and confidence in the region, so that nations can do what they need to do in order to defeat the threat' posed by Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorist groups.
'As America does more, we will ask others to join us in doing their part,' he said referring to Obama Administration's plans to 'forge a new contact group for Afghanistan and Pakistan that brings together all who should have a stake in the security of the region.'
The proposed group will include America's NATO allies and other partners, the Central Asian states, Gulf nations, Iran, Russia, India, and China, Jones said noting, 'All have a stake in the promise of lasting peace and security and development in the reign.
US military is deploying the robots to Afghanistan to navigate the country's treacherous terrain. Named BigDogs, these robots are being deployed in addition to big guns.
The BigDogs - four-legged robots that can take the helm the country's treacherous terrain - and pilotless helicopters than can transport tons of supplies to very remote bases are just two of the new weapons being tested in Afghanistan.The machine's creator, Boston Dynamics, has a motto - "dedicated to the way things move" - and that's precisely what is both jarring and fascinating about its invention.
Using a gasoline engine that emits an eerie lawnmower buzz, BigDog has animal-inspired articulated legs that absorb shock and recycle kinetic energy from one step to the next. Its robot brain, a sophisticated computer, controls locomotion sensors that adapt rapidly to the environment. The entire control system regulates steers and navigates ground contact. A laser gyroscope keeps BigDog on his metal paws - even when the robot slips, stumbles or is kicked over.
Boston Dynamics says BigDog can run as fast as 4 miles per hour, walk slowly, lie down and climb slopes up to 35 degrees. BigDog's heightened sense can also survey the surrounding terrain and become alert to potential danger. All told, the BigDog bears an uncanny resemblance to a living organic animal.
Routine helicopter flights operating 24 hours a day, year round, are crucial for the American mission. The Marine Corps has recently called for unmanned cargo flights to carry essentials to isolated areas that can be reached only by air. Enter the K-MAX, a remote-controlled helicopter designed to transport heavy loads - even in Afghanistan's high altitudes.
US President Barack Obama react at former Vice President Dick Cheney's analysis of his policies on terrorism suspects, saying Cheney's approach had brought the United States scorn instead of security.
Obama told in "60 Minutes" program that the policy on detainees at GuantanamoBay military prison under the management of former President George W. Bush had been "unsustainable".
"How many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the attitude that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney? It hasn't made us safer. What it has been is a great advertisement for anti-American sentiment," Obama said, according to excerpts released by CBS on Saturday. The interview was to be broadcast on Sunday,Cheney recently told CNN television that Obama's revamped policies on terrorism suspects would make the US more susceptible to attack.
Obama started rolling back some of the Bush administration's national security policies. Obama ordered the closing of Guantanamo, Cuba, within a year, and an end to the harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects.
Obama said, however, that decisions that land on his desk are often a choice "between bad and worse." His hardest decision thus far, he told CBS, was sending an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan.
Earlier this week White House spokesman Robert Gibbs poured scorn on Cheney's comments about Obama's terrorism policies. Gibbs called the former vice president part of a "Republican cabal" along with conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
India is ringed by turbulent states Like Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar. Turbulence has percolated through India's porous borders in the form of arms and narcotics to finance insurgents, militants, terrorists and religious fundamentalists.
India remains Pakistan's primary target and operating ground for Islamic fundamentalists and terrorist groups who infiltrate through Jammu&Kashmir, Nepal and Bangladesh and carry out anti-Indian activities with impunity.
Nepal is vulnerable to China's influence. Its extremists have linkages with the People's War Group in India. In its bid to expand its influence, the PWG has carved a corridor ringing the states of Andhra Pradesh-Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh-Orissa-West Bengal-Jharkhand-Bihar.
This endless internal turbulence in India is also inter-linked with external factors. To the north, India shares a 3,440-km long border with China, which can pose the entire spectrum of conventional, nuclear and missile threats. It can also influence and use as proxy India’s neighbors to weigh India down in every possible way.
In short, India's 14,058-km long land frontier is impacted by a perpetually hostile or semi-hostile environment. Indian security stands threatened by demographic assault, arms and drug smuggling, and the safe havens that the insurgents have in India.
