NEW DELHI: President Barack Obama endorsed Monday India's long-held demand for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, a reflection of the Asian country's growing global weight and its challenge to rival China. India says a seat on the Council would reflect the importance of the G20 nation as its trillion dollar economy helps spur global growth and its government exerts greater influence over issues from Doha trade to climate change talks. “In the years ahead, I look forward to a reformed United Nations Security Council that includes India as a permanent member,” Obama said in a speech to India's parliament on his first official visit to the world's largest democracy. “Let me suggest that with increased power comes increased responsibility,” he added at the end of the first leg of a 10-day Asian tour that has also been viewed as a support-gathering exercise for countries like India to exert pressure on China on its currency. On the contentious issue of Kashmir, President Obama said the United States could not impose a solution on Kashmir or other issues in the volatile India-Pakistan relationship. “I believe both Pakistan and India have an interest in reducing tensions between the two countries,” Obama said at a joint press conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. But he added: “The United States cannot impose a solution on these problems.” In his three-day trip – the longest stay in any foreign country by Obama – the US leader announced $10 billion in business deals, aiming at reassuring voters at home that countries like India offer benefits for US jobs rather than threatening unemployment through outsourcing. The UN move comes as India becomes increasingly competitive with China for global resources from Africa to Latin America. Its economic assertiveness, however, has often been accompanied by cautious diplomacy on issues like Myanamar and engagement with Iran. The West is increasingly dependent on India and China to power its moribund economies, but it remains unclear how far Delhi would reciprocate in terms of further opening its economy to foreign firms. “I don't think India is emerging. It has emerged. India is a key actor on the world stage,” Obama told the joint news conference with Singh earlier in the day. The US leader also warned that India would have to take a more responsible role in international affairs, such as pressuring Myanmar to embrace democracy. “India has often shied away from some of these issues. But speaking up for those that cannot do so for themselves is not interfering in the affairs of other countries,” President Obama said. Obama is walking a diplomatic tightrope in New Delhi, on the one hand trying to boost diplomatic and business ties with India while on the other ensuring relations with Pakistan and China, nations often at loggerheads with India, stay stable. He criticized US ally Pakistan over its failure to clamp down on militants. India has long expressed skepticism at US support for Pakistan, saying Islamabad is hoodwinking Washington by taking aid while also backing militants in Afghanistan. “We will continue to insist to Pakistan's leaders that terrorist safe havens within their borders are unacceptable and that the terrorists behind the Mumbai attacks be brought to justice,” he said. But Singh appeared to rebuff calls by the US president for the nuclear foes, who have gone to war three times since independence in 1947, to move forward on peace talks. “You cannot simultaneously be talking and at the same time the terror machine is as active as ever before,” Singh said.
