Washington: Observing that remarkable progress has been achieved in the Indo-Pak peace front, US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Christina Rocca, has praised Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for his "vision and statesmanship".

Rocca, while testifying yesterday (Mar 2, 2004) on the Budget request for South Asia for fiscal 2005, also lauded Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and the Governments of both the countries for the "the remarkable progress recently achieved towards resolving the issues dividing them."

She said regional stability is a high policy priority in South Asia and US will continue to support the peace moves.

"We will be watching developments with hopes for continued success and will continue to support these efforts to resolve the long-running conflict."

While praising the peace moves, she also mentioned Government of India's talk process with Hurriyat Conference.

On US-India ties and nuclear non-proliferation issues, Rocca said President George Bush and Vajpayee had announced the 'Next Steps in Strategic Partnership,' an initiative to "cement strategic ties with the world's largest democracy".

This expanded cooperation on civilian nuclear activities, space programmes, high technology trade and an expanded dialogue on missile defence, she said, "will bring significant economic benefits to both sides, while also achieving our non-proliferation goals through enhanced export controls in India and maintaining all our international non-proliferation obligations."