New Delhi, 30 July 2010: UK Prime Minister David Cameron for a “distinguished political career” and his “strong personal commitment” to take the India-UK partnership to an even higher level of understanding and enhanced partnership between the two countries.
Cameron's visit, which came within months of his election victory, is being seen in New Delhi as a bold bid to transform the relationship in a qualitative manner and PM Singh said: "We have agreed on specific initiatives in the areas of defence cooperation."
They also agreed to work on development of broad-based UK-Indian co-operation in the Defence sector. The two leaders noted the joint Army exercise, Shamsheer Bugle, which took place in India in June and also the joint Naval exercise Konkan, which is completed today in India. They looked forward to the joint Air exercise, Indra Dhanush, in India in October 10.
The two sides noted the threats both countries faced from terrorism, and welcomed the strong growth of co-operation in countering it.
With this visit, he said, "we have set in place a new momentum to drive our strategic partnership forward. I have no doubt that this will be good for both countries and it responds to the wishes and aspirations of both countries’ people."
Both sides discussed India's particular interest in attracting international as well as domestic investment in infrastructure over the next decade, and how best the two governments could enable and encourage this. The agreed to establish an India-UK Infrastructure Group, led by the two governments and drawing on the expertise of the private sector, which would help identify barriers to investment and potential solutions.
Welcoming the new opportunities that had opened up for co-operation in the civil nuclear power sector, following the signature earlier this year of the UK-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation Declaration, the India-UK joint statement said, "This has created opportunities for wide ranging cooperation between the countries in the nuclear field including with regard to nuclear trade and exchanges between scientific institutions."
Describing India and the UK as "natural partners to shape a better world", Prime minister Manmohan Singh said, "If we join hands together, we can make a meaningful contribution to addressing the challenges of global poverty and development, reform of global institutions, terrorism and climate change."
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