WASHINGTON – US Administration has declared India as the most incrediblecounter terrorism partner of the US and said the future is “very bright”for bilateral co-operation in this arena.

US Counter-terrorism Coordinator, Nathan Sales credited the meetingsbetween PM Modi and Trumplink>earlyin the latter’s tenure as the reason behind a “powerful” partnershipbetween the two nations.

“India is an incredibly important, incredibly valuable and incredibly closecounter-terrorism partner of the US,” Sales told reporters during ateleconference at the conclusion of the conference on Law EnforcementEfforts to Defeat ISIS.

“The President (Trump) and the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) held a very,very productive series of meetings earlier in the administration, and inresponse to that set of meetings, the US government and the Indiangovernment have forged ahead to create a really powerful partnership,” hesaid.

Sales said the Trunp administration has designated number of organizationsas terrorists related to terrorist threats that India faces.

In 2016, the US entered into an arrangement with India to share informationabout known and suspected terrorists.

“I think the future is very bright for US-India counter-terrorismcorporation,” Sales said.

Sales said South Asia is one of the areas of the world where ISIS has anincreasingly robust presence.

“Bangladesh is a good example of this. The Holey Artisan Bakery attack inJuly of 2016 in Dhaka killed 22 people,” he said.

The US is also tracking in South Asia the ISIS Khorasan affiliates of ISISbecoming increasingly ambitious and increasingly active, he said.

“We are working with our partners in the region to develop a sharedunderstanding of the threat that these organisations pose to us in the USand pose to local governments. We are also working with those partners todevelop a set of responses,” said Sales.

Those responses include things like information-sharing, exchanging dataabout known and suspected terrorists, improving border security efforts tospot terrorists as they travel from conflict zone to conflict zone.

“I am confident that by bringing together partner nations who have a commonunderstanding of the threat we face that we’ll be able to address this,” hesaid.