India-US partnership has gone to new heights: NSA Jake Sullivan

Washington: The partnership between India and the United States has reached a new height with collaboration on technology and other fields, the US National Security Advisor has said.

"The partnership between the US and India, a country in BRICs, has gone to new heights with an engagement across technology and security and so many other dimensions," NSA Jake Sullivan told reporters at a White House news conference.

Sullivan was responding to questions on the decline in American leadership in the world, in light of Iran, Egypt, UAE, and Ethiopia joining BRICS, and Saudi Arabia mulling over becoming part of it.

"I think if you look at the US role and standing in its relationships across the key regions of the world, we feel very good about where we are," Sullivan said.

"If you look at what's happened with NATO, we've made NATO larger than ever, if you look at what's just happening this week, a historic trilateral with the US, Japan, and the Philippines. If you look across the Indo-Pacific at how we've upgraded our relations not just with traditional allies, but with the likes of Vietnam, Indonesia, ASEAN as a whole," Sullivan said in an attempt to refute the charge.

The NSA added that next month the president will welcome the president of Kenya for a state visit here, "a historic moment."

"... he's hosted all of the leaders of the Pacific Islands, that he's hosted all of the leaders of Africa at a summit in the United States, that the United States has increased its investments in the infrastructure, physical, digital, energy infrastructure in the Americas, in Africa and Southeast Asia and beyond," he said.

Sullivan said the US has expressed its concerns to China about inputs to Russia’s industrial base.

"We have not seen any evidence that they'll provide direct military aid to Russia, but we have expressed our concerns about inputs to Russia's defence industrial base, something Secretary Blinken spoke about I think quite effectively in Europe last week," he said.