Former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States must respect India's right to defend itself. Speaking on Saturday at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2026, he noted that India is a global force. He said the US must have a zero-tolerance policy for terrorism to ensure security.
Former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States must respect India's right to defend itself and maintain a zero-tolerance policy towards terrorism, while describing Washington's relationships with India and Pakistan as fundamentally different. Speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2026 in New Delhi on Saturday, Blinken said the India-US relationship was global in nature, driven by shared strategic interests, while the US engagement with Pakistan remained largely regional. "India is a global force," he said, adding that the relationship and shared interests between Washington and New Delhi were "really global in nature".
In contrast, he said cooperation with Pakistan remained important in specific areas, particularly counter-terrorism. "The relations with Pakistan are regional, and there are still going to be important areas where we need to do things with them, particularly, for example, when it comes to counter-terrorism, but these are fundamentally different relationships," he said, PTI reported. "We have to have a zero-tolerance policy for terrorism. Period. And that means that we have to have respect for India's right to defend itself," he added. Blinken said Washington should support India's efforts to respond to attacks while also pursuing diplomatic initiatives to prevent tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad from escalating.
He highlighted the risks of a wider confrontation, given that both countries possess nuclear weapons. Reflecting on Washington's past engagement with Islamabad, Blinken said US strategic interests during the Cold War and the war in Afghanistan may have made successive administrations less critical of Pakistan's civil-military establishment. He suggested there was an opportunity for Washington to do more in this regard. On India-US ties, Blinken described the transformation over recent decades as a shift from estrangement to a strategic partnership built on converging interests and people-to-people connections.
"We moved from estrangement to a genuine and, in some ways, unique partnership, built on a convergence of strategic interests. Of course, it is also underpinned by the profound people-to-people connections between our societies," he said. He identified technology as a key area for the next phase of cooperation, citing opportunities in semiconductors, artificial intelligence, space and quantum technology. He said collaboration in these fields could further strengthen bilateral ties. Blinken also said Washington needed to respect India's strategic autonomy and understand that the two countries would not always share the same position on international issues.
On India's ties with Russia, he acknowledged the historical relationship between New Delhi and Moscow and said the US did not expect India to end it. He suggested, however, that India diversify its sources of energy and military equipment to avoid excessive dependence on Russia. Blinken also addressed tensions between New Delhi and Washington over trade tariffs and India's purchases of Russian energy. He described US criticism of India's Russian energy purchases as "a little hypocritical", pointing to Washington's own decision to waive sanctions on Russian energy. Blinken served as the 71st US secretary of state from 2021 to 2025 under former President Joe Biden.