In an interview to Forbes magazine, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed that Indo-US nuke deal will strengthen bilateral relationship. She said that the conclusion of the Indo-US nuke deal would be a milestone in bilateral ties, and will push the relationship to the next level. However, she said that the US-India civil nuclear deal would not be the end of moving the US-Indian relationship forward

 

Rice promised to work more on Nuke Deal and better Indo-US relationship. She expected that the work will be carried out by successive Secretaries of State without stopping. She said that she always looks for the work that takes relationship to the next level, and India's relationship with USA with the deal will certainly reach to that level.

 

Referring to the process that led to the July 18, 2005 joint statement of Manmohan Singh and Bush, Condoleezza Rice said that US really started pursuing the India Civil Nuclear deal in 2005, so there was a period of getting to know the relationship and building on what had been there before. She admitted that she did know that it would be an issue.

 

She accepted India's relationship is a special one. She viewed that USA set out at the beginning to try and improve, extend, broaden and deepen the US-India relationship because very early on the President Bush, and she saw it as an emerging, big democracy and the relationship's never been very close.