Palo Alto, California: Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has dismissed concerns around Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Russia visit, saying that the US can't hold India to a loyalty test every five minutes.
Speaking at Indus X (India-United States Defence Acceleration Ecosystem), she categorised the India-US ties as enduring and bipartisan and stressed that whoever comes to the White House knows the importance of the relationship.
"Countries wish to, as India says, have strategic autonomy and I have no problem with that. But it is our (US and India's) deep interests that will ultimately lead to a stronger partnership," she added.
Rice, Director at the Hoover Institute at Stanford, called Russian military equipment "junk" and said PM Modi's Moscow visit won't lead to much on the defence side. This even as she indicated that the US believes it has been slow on stepping up military cooperation with India and lost some vital time and opportunity.
She also added that PM Modi was aware of the no-limits relationship between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and that it could pose a huge challenge to India.
Describing China as formidable rival for the US, Rice said the situation is graver than the Cold War since Moscow was a military giant but a technological and economic midget, whereas China has leveraged technology and is so well integrated into the global networks and supply chains that it is a tough situation to deal with.
Rice was instrumental in getting the Indo-US civil nuclear deal going 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, shortly after his trip to Ukraine where he met President Volodymyr Zelensky.
India has asserted it will support any feasible and mutually acceptable solution or format that could restore peace between the two warring countries. Sources have said National Security Advisor Ajit Doval will visit Moscow this week to hold discussions aimed at resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict.