Robert Blake, the charge d'affaires in the US embassy here, told HardNews magazine in its forthcoming June issue that the bilateral cooperation would be in step with New Delhi's "ambition to be a global player" and a member of the UN Security Council.

But Blake was non-committal when asked whether the US would back India's bid for a permanent seat in the Security Council, saying Washington was "still studying the whole range of UN reform issues".

Blake emphasised it was important to separate the US decision not to issue a visa to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi from "the larger question of our relations" with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Despite the denial of visa to Modi, he said: "I want to stress that we have very good relations with the BJP. We keep in close touch with them now and we understand that they would really want to start again the good progress that they were once making."

At the same time, Blake said the US attached "great importance to our relations with the Muslim community everywhere, and in India itself, I personally spend a lot of my time conducting outreach programmes for Muslim communities".

Referring to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's remarks that the US wanted to help India become a superpower, he said: "She meant we admire the progress India has made as a democracy and that India is now the largest democracy in the world.

"We are going to be working not only to manage regional crises but also global crises.

"India has the ambition to be a global player, (and) wants to be member of UN Security Council, so we are putting in place the building blocks now to work more closely with India on a huge range of topics - energy, military, science and technology, health, and in many fields.

"Post 9/11, India has actively begun to engage more actively with the US on every front, and we welcome that engagement."

Blake said the US recognised India was looking to expand its role.

"The economic growth that has taken place since 1991 has given India the ambition to be a world power. So India is now looking to project its influence overseas, and I think as it does so it wants to work more closely with the US, and we certainly welcome that."

A "very good" example of bilateral cooperation was the relief operation after the Dec 26 tsunami, he remarked. This also "reflected the habits of cooperation that the two countries have developed".

On the reform of the UN, he said: "We already have dialogue under way on that, and our special advisor on UN reform will visit New Delhi.

"But we know our position. So far, we are still studying the whole range of UN reform issues. There is a wide range of other important issues that are being studied. We are not going to approach this piecemeal and take a decision on just one thing."
 
Blake ruled out any effort by the US administration to influence Air-India's decision to buy Boeing aircraft. "I think people in Washington would be amused to hear that we are bullying India.

"India is a sovereign country and we have very respectful relations with India. The Boeing decisions were made on the basis of which company has the best product at the lowest price, and in this case it was Boeing."
 
Referring to US concerns about the proposed Indo-Iranian gas pipeline, he said: "We are deeply concerned about Iran's support for terrorism and its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction programmes. No country should be providing them with the resources to continue to pursue those policies.

"We haven't made any threats to India, and India is well aware of our concern. This is not a major focus area compared to the dialogue we had on strategic energy and economic issues."