The U.S. no longer sees India as “hyphenated” with Pakistan, says former senior U.S. official and President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, William Burns, particularly after the India-U.S. civil nuclear deal was agreed to in 2005.

Mr. Burns, who was U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State until 2014, was responding to a strong statement from the Ministry of External Affairs on Monday that accused U.S. President Obama of having a “lack of understanding of India’s defence posture”.

Mr. Obama had spoken of concern about rising nuclear stockpiles in India and Pakistan, a comment that was seen in India as a “re-hyphenation” or coupling of the U.S.’s view of both countries. “The significance of the U.S.-India civil nuclear deal was not just our bilateral understanding, but the acceptance of India’s emergence as a responsible nuclear power. I think the reality is when you are speaking of potential nuclear risks of countries with arsenals this kind of issue will get raised, but I think the era of hyphenation is long passed,” Mr. Burns told The Hindu in a limited media interaction.

“My understanding is that the U.S. commitment comes particularly to India’s case, and not lumping it together with anyone else. The significance is that we have moved past the era of hyphenated thinking about India,” Mr. Burns said when asked if President Obama’s comments would affect India’s chances at membership of the NSG and other nuclear regimes.

When asked about Indian concerns over the sale of F-16 fighter jets from the U.S. to Pakistan, Mr. Burns said while the concerns were “understandable”, they wouldn’t affect the relationship.

“The U.S.-India partnership is of such significance to both our countries, it seems inevitable to me that from time to time there are going to be concerns but when the concerns are raised by either side, the partnership has grown so solid, that we can get through those understandable concerns, and in this case we would too.”

In a sign of more potential concerns for India on Monday, the U.S. Department of Defence also awarded a $170 million contract for nine ‘AH-1Z Viper’ attack-helicopters to Pakistan to be manufactured by Bell Helicopters by September 2018.

The MEA had not responded to the ‘Viper’ announcement at the time of this writing, but had expressed “disappointment” over the earlier announcement of the F-16s on February 13th this year, saying that India “disagreed with the U.S. rationale that such arms transfers (to Pakistan) help to combat terrorism”.

Mr. Burns is in Delhi for the launch of Carnegie’s India Centre, and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on Tuesday.