Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

PM's remarks at the meeting with President Bush

"Mr. President, I know how busy you are with problems relating to the management of the financial crisis. That despite all the enormous pressures on your time you have found it possible to receive me is something I deeply appreciate, deeply value.

In the last four-and-a-half years that I have been Prime Minister, I have been the recipient of your generosity, your affection, your friendship. It means a lot to me and to the people of India.

In these last four-and-a-half years, there has been a massive transformation of India-United States relations. And Mr. President, you have played the most important role in making all this happen. With regard to civil nuclear energy cooperation, I know these are difficult issues, and at each stage it was your leadership, your personal intervention, which resolved all the difficulties that were affecting the progress of these negotiations.

I sincerely hope that this agreement, which is now before the U.S. Congress, will be approved in a manner which will be satisfactory from the point of view of both of our countries. And when the history is written, I think it will be recorded that President George W. Bush played a historic role in bringing our two democracy closer to each other.

I am mentioning civil nuclear initiative because for 34 years, India has suffered from a nuclear apartheid. We have not been able to trade in nuclear material, nuclear reactors, nuclear raw materials. And when this restrictive regime ends, I think a great deal of credit will go to President Bush. And for this I am very grateful to you, Mr. President.

But there has been enormous transformation in our relationship in many other respects. The United States is India's largest trading partner. The United States is the largest investor in our country. And at President Bush's initiative, we set up a two-country CEOs forum, which has come forward with many innovative ideas to bring the business communities of our two countries closer to each other.

We have taken new initiative in the field of education. We have today a new architecture of bringing the academic communities of our two countries, a new scheme of Fulbright-Naru Scholarship will unite the intellectual communities of our two countries in a manner which gives me immense satisfaction.

In the areas of science and technologies, in the areas relating to environment management, in areas relating to climate change, in areas relating to health, in areas relating to knowledge initiative in agriculture, all these initiatives have emerged as a result of the historic meeting that I had with President Bush on 18th of July 2005. We now have a strategic partnership with the United States, and all that has happened because of the strong personal commitment of the president.

India is a functioning democracy, and I know how much President Bush appreciates that fact, that a country of a billion people with tremendous poverty, with all the diversities of the world, is yet trying to find its economic and social salvation in the framework of a functioning democracy. President Bush and I have discussed this aspect of India's functioning several times, and he has shown enormous respect for India or Indian democracy.

So, Mr. President, this may be my last visit to you during your Presidency, and let me say that thank you very much. The people of India deeply love you. And all that you have done to bring our two countries closer to each other is something history will remember for ever."