President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama arrive for a State Dinner with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife Mrs. Gursharan Kaur at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, November 24, 2009. (Olivier Douliery /Abaca Press/MCT)

By Paul Richter and Christi Parsons

Tribune Washington Bureau

(MCT)

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, moving to allay concerns over a loss of U.S. affection, reassured India’s prime minister Tuesday that the partnership between the two countries would be “one of the defining relationships of the 21st century.”

Appearing with Manmohan Singh at the White House after two hours of talks, Obama said the two countries have agreed to broaden cooperation in a range of areas, including the economy, agriculture, technology, trade and counter-terrorism.

“The United States and India are natural allies,” Obama said at a news conference.

There was no visible sign of progress on two important but difficult issues: Iran’s disputed nuclear program and the long-delayed U.S.-India civil nuclear agreement. U.S. officials stressed that Obama remains fully committed to the complex 2005 nuclear deal, though it has taken far longer to complete than expected.

Indian officials have worried recently that the Obama administration is less committed than its predecessors to strengthening the U.S.-India relationship. Indians are anxious that their relationship is taking a back seat to growing U.S.-Chinese and U.S.-Pakistani ties. Obama returned last week from a trip to Asia that included a three-day stop in China.

But the administration made a special effort to overcome these perceptions. Singh’s trip was chosen to be the first formal state visit of Obama’s presidency, and included a ceremonial state dinner on Tuesday night.

In a statement that appeared aimed at listeners in Delhi, Obama stressed that the United States is not looking solely to China for leadership in Asia.

“The United States welcomes and encourages India’s leadership role in helping to shape the rise of a stable, peaceful and prosperous Asia,” Obama said.

Obama also accepted an invitation from Singh to visit India next year.

Ashley J. Tellis, who was a senior South Asia aide in the Bush White House, said the American president’s statements held valuable symbolism and predicted Tuesday’s meeting “would provide meaningful moment to the bilateral relationship.”

But the “real tests are yet to come,” said Tellis, now at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. It remains to be seen whether the United States will devote the needed time to building a strategic relationship, and whether the two countries can work out their differences on climate change, Iran, and nuclear non proliferation, he said.

The Obama administration would like India to take aggressive steps to reduce carbon emissions, while Indians contend the developed world should bear a larger share of that responsibility. India has also been reluctant to impose tough economic sanctions on Iran, with which it has a strong economic ties.

Obama and Singh may have been closer together on the issue of Afghanistan, a subject that Singh raised repeatedly at a series of public meetings in Washington this week, and which the two leaders discussed at the White House.

Michael Hammer, a White House spokesman, said Singh and Obama “agreed that stabilizing Afghanistan and preventing a return of the Taliban to power are critically important.”

Teresita Shaffer, a former U.S. ambassador at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Indians don’t want the U.S. to fail in Afghanistan because they believe it would mean “a much bigger footprint for militant Islam.”

More broadly, she said, “They’ve bet their international role on ties to a United States strong enough to deliver the goods.”

Hammer said that in their discussion of Iran, the two leaders “resolved to work together to make sure that all countries live up to their international obligations in the nuclear context.”

He said the administration “remains committed to fully implementing the nuclear deal and to working with India to make civil nuclear cooperation with India a reality as quickly as possible.”

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(c) 2009, Tribune Co.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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