S Jaishankar with Marco Rubio

New Delhi: United States Secretary of State marco rubio On Sunday, he described India as one of the most important strategic partners of America and said that relations between the two countries go far beyond traditional diplomacy.Speaking at a joint press conference with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Rubio said the India-US partnership is based on common interests and cooperation on many global issues.“Strategic partnerships are a very different thing,” Rubio said. “A strategic partnership is when your interests as two nations align, and you work together strategically to solve those problems,” he said.Rubio said the wide range of areas in which the two countries cooperate reflects the strength of relations between Washington and New Delhi.“The breadth of the list of issues on which we work closely with India highlights the fact that India is an important strategic partner to the United States, one of our most important strategic partners in the world,” Rubio said.Rubio also mentioned the democratic values ​​shared by both countries.“Democracy answers directly to its people and you have to answer consistently,” he said.On terrorism, Rubio said both India and the US have suffered losses due to global terrorist networks and they have developed strong cooperation on counter-terrorism.“On the issue of terrorism, both our countries have suffered direct and indirect losses due to the global terrorist network. This resulted in a strong anti-terrorism alignment,” he said.He also talked about cooperation in emerging technologies and innovation and said both countries agreed on managing opportunities and risks in this area.“We have a tremendous strategic alliance between our countries and there is agreement on that point,” Rubio said.Rubio further said that India and the US are working together to ensure free movement of global trade, especially in international waters and airspace.“Similarly, the same is true in the Indo-Pacific on the unimpeded flow of commerce, particularly in international airspace and international waters, ensuring that there is a free and open Indo-Pacific, but it extends beyond the Indo-Pacific,” he said.Earlier, Jaishankar and Rubio held delegation-level talks at Hyderabad House in New Delhi as part of the ongoing high-level engagement between the two countries.Senior officials from both sides participated in the meeting. Jaishankar was accompanied by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, State Department spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal and other officials, while Rubio was accompanied by US Ambassador to India Sergio Gore and members of the US delegation.During the meeting, Rubio described the first day of his visit to India as “fantastic” and said the US and India are not just allies but “strategic partners”.“It’s already been a wonderful day. We look forward to our visits today and our conversations and learning more about the country… As you mentioned, the United States and India are not just allies; we are strategic allies, and that is of vital importance. We obviously work with countries around the world and throughout the region on a variety of issues as they emerge, but our strategic partnership is what sets this relationship apart, because it’s not limited to just one region. “It expands opportunities to collaborate globally across different regions of the world, and that potentially includes the Western Hemisphere and places like that,” he said.Rubio said there was still “a lot of work to do” between the two countries and described India and the US as the two “largest democracies” in the world.He said it had laid a strong foundation for “incredible cooperation” and said the visit aimed to “continue to build on what is already a very solid and strong strategic partnership.”