Non-alignment has lost its meaning: Rice

The US secretary of state suggests India needs to "move past old ways of thinking" to enhance ties between the two countries.

Questioning the relevance of 'non-alignment' in the present day world, the US has suggested that India needed to "move past old ways of thinking and old ways of acting" to create a partnership for future relations between the two countries.

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"I know there are some who still talk about non-alignment in foreign policy. But, may be, that made sense during the Cold War when the world really was divided into rival camps," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday.

Talking about Indo-US relations, she said, "The question I would ask is, as fellow democracies with so many interests and principles in common at a time when people of every culture, every race and every religion are embracing political and economic liberty, what is the meaning of non-alignment?" Insisting that "it (non-alignment) has lost its meaning", she said "one is aligned not with the interests and power of one bloc or another but with the values of a common humanity." She asked "how can we not afford to join each other", on a global scale, to support opportunity and prosperity and justice and dignity and health and education and freedom and democracy.

"In order to create a partnership for our future and to fully realise it, we are going to have to move past old ways of thinking and old ways of acting," Rice said in apparent suggestion to India.

Asked to respond to the remarks, External Affairs Ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna refused to comment but said India's position on non-alignment was well known.

New Delhi insists that the non-alignment movement is still relevant.