US-India relationship should stand on its own: diplomat

Edgar Kagan, US consul general for Mumbai, today said that his country's relationship with India should stand on its own.
"For many years, one of the things that we heard from India is importance of delinking India and Pakistan from US perspective," Kagan said, talking to reporters after meeting Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar here.
The US' relationship with India is independent of its relationship with Pakistan and vice versa, he said.
"I would like to see more delinking relationship, I would like to see our relationship with India to stand on its own regardless of what happens with Pakistan and vice versa," he said.

"When you look at the US-India relationship...to my mind what's striking is that this sort of improvement in ties goes back to 1999-2000.
"For us it started under President Bill Clinton and under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for India. In the US, we are now on our fourth President who has made real efforts to really focus on improving relationship," Kagan added.

In both countries, both main parties are committed to improving the relationship, he noted.
"....this is not the property of one person, or one party on either side. This is bi-partisan with India's two major parties and multiple prime ministers and multiple presidents from the two US parties all showing a commitment to improving the relationship," he said.

To a question on Indian students who increasingly flock to US universities, Kagan said, "We want to see more people study in the US. We welcome them. We are happy with the increase in the number of Indian students in the US which is somewhere 12 per cent in 2015-16.
"Indians are the second-largest group studying in US. We want to see more of that. We want to make sure that they are going to good educational institutions and they are qualified," he added.