JENNA SCHUETTE | opinion editor
WITH AP SOURCES

Secretary Gates visits India in hopes of striking a nuclear deal.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates traveled to Delhi, India earlier this week to solidify military ties and promote U.S. arms sales.

Gates is there to lobby for U.S. firms that hope to win a contract to supply India with 126 fighter jets.

U.S. arms manufacturers are competing with Russian and European rivals for the $10 to $12 billion deal. The deadline for the bid expires next week. A U.S. official told the Associated Press that U.S. firms “operate with integrity, which is different than what India has seen with other partners in the world.”

Earlier this month India agreed on a $1 billion deal to buy military aircraft carriers from U.S. firm Lockheed Martin.

The improved relationship between India and the U.S. has been one of the most significant changes in the last 15 years, according to Gates.

“I want to see what we can do to not only strengthen that relationship but perhaps expand it in other ways,” Gates said.

Gates will also be discussing a key deal that would see the U.S. supply India with nuclear technology for civilian uses that has yet to be approved by India.

The deal, which would end a three-decade U.S. ban on nuclear exports to India, would send nuclear fuel and technology to India.

In the past, India has been cut off from international atomic trade because it refused to sign nonproliferation treaties. India had tested nuclear weapons in 1974 and 1998 and consequently has been banned from buying fuel for its atomic reactors.

However, U.S. senators are looking to reverse this ban.

Last week, U.S. senators put pressure on India’s prime minister to finalize the landmark nuclear pact. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said it was critical for India to move quickly on the deal in order for the Senate to vote on it before summer recess.

Some members of Congress have expressed concern that the extra nuclear fuel would encourage India to produce more nuclear weapons and that the deal may trigger an arms race with nearby neighbors Pakistan and China.

However, India believes the pact is essential for its growing energy needs.

India’s communist parties, however, oppose the deal because they say it will strengthen their ties to the U.S. and give America considerable influence over Indian foreign policy.

The communist parties have a crucial role in India’s government and will need to lend support in order for this pact to be successful.

Defense co-operation between India and the US has increased dramatically since the end of the Cold War.

After the Cold War, India broke free of communist ideologies and seemed to join the United States’ goal to check China’s growing military influence.
The Indo-U.S. relationship has also been strengthened over the years by trade.

India is currently the world’s third largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity.

American companies have heavily invested in India in recent years.

India was even among one of the first countries to declare support to the United States’ global war against terrorism after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.