NEW DELHI: Visits to India by the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and US President’s Special Envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan (AfPak) Richard Holbrooke, just days ahead of an international meeting on

the future of Afghanistan, indicate that the United States

and India are “on the same page” on regional matters, a senior official said, with both increasingly frustrated on Pakistan’s efforts to thwart terrorism. According to senior official sources, the visits are “testimony to the outright rejection” of Pakistan’s efforts to keep India out of the loop on efforts to resolve the Afghan crisis.

Praising India for its “statesmanlike” conduct in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks in November 2008 Gates, in the course of his two day visit beginning today, will push for closer defence and anti-terrorism cooperation between the two countries during his meetings with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Defence Minister AK Antony and External Affairs Minister SM Krishna.

“The bombing in Mumbai was a really terrible event and frankly I believe that the Indians responded subsequently with a great deal of restraint and have conducted themselves in a very statesmen-like manner since that attack,” Gates told reporters.

Gates recently told the US Senate he believed the Al Qaeda wanted to provoke a conflict between India and Pakistan, and was providing the Lashkar-e-Taiba (the LET is the organisation blamed for the Mumbai carnage) with assistance to help the group plot attacks in India. Emerging from his talks with top government officials yesterday, Holbrooke said India was a “tremendously important participant in the search for peace and stability not only in south Asia but throughout the vast region that stretches from the Mediterranean to the Pacific.” Like senior Indian officials, Holbrooke also reiterated that the US expected “more action” from Pakistan in routing the Taliban from its bases on the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao stressed that the Indian and US strategies in the region were in consonance.

“The AF-Pak strategy announced by President Obama in December is directed against terrorism in our region. It seeks to eliminate the sources of terrorism in Pakistan. It is also focused on the sources of terrorism which operate out of areas contiguous to Afghanistan,” Rao said adding, “I would also say that the United States has been sensitised to our concerns about terrorism that operates from areas contiguous to our border with Pakistan.”

It is both Gates and Holbrooke’s first visit to India since US President Barack Obama announced his AF-Pak strategy and troop surge in Afghanistan in early December.

India pushed further, with outgoing National Security Adviser MK Narayanan saying Islamabad had done nothing to dismantle militant groups since the Mumbai attacks, and even warning that Pakistan would strongly attempt to launch attacks during the Commonwealth Games, to be held in New Delhi in October.