Everyone knows about Nicholas Burns, the former Under Secretary of State in the US State Department, who was the point man for the Bush Administration when it came to working out the modalities involved in getting the India-US civilian nuclear deal through. Burns retired from the State Department on February 29 but remained on as a Special Envoy for that particular issue. He is currently Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics at Harvard’s John F Kennedy School of Government.
He was in New York on Thursday at an event organised by the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Advanced Study of India.
Now, Burns came out in support of President-elect Barack Obama’s diplomatic platform over a month before the November 4 elections. Burns does not believe that India needs to be overly concerned over Obama’s recent comments on Kashmir. As for the non-proliferation hawks taking over US foreign policy and possibly delaying or even scuppering the nuclear deal, Burns believes it’s just to early to pontificate (as most pundits do) on what an Obama Administration’s actual positions will be. Here’s part of an interview with the diplomat who worked under both of Obama’s predecessors, George W Bush and Bill Cinton:

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