On Board Air India One, Oct. 30: Speaking to media on his meeting with the Chinese Premier, Mr Wen Jiabao, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, denied that he was taking a “naram (soft)” line on China.
Dr Singh said he was “not going weak” on China. “It’s just that I’m in agreement with what Mr Wen Jiabao has said. Relations between our countries must be strong. We must end our differences. I have invited him and he has agreed to come this year itself,” the PM said.
The national security adviser, Mr Shivshankar Menon, who said much of the Singh-Clinton meeting was spent discussing the Obama visit, also said Ms Clinton shared details of the recent visit to the US by a high-powered Pakistani delegation led by the Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani which focused on counter-terrorism, what the US was trying to achieve in Afghanistan and India’s own efforts in the reconstruction of that country.
On taking restricted items off the entities list, Mr Menon said negotiations were currently underway with the US department of energy and that India had whittled down that list during negotiations on restricted dual-use technologies that could be made available to India.