[Al Arabiya Latest] United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paid tribute to Mumbai victims Saturday calling for a global fight against terror as she aimed to finalize a defense agreement essential to allowing U.S. companies to sell sophisticated arms to India.On her first trip to India as Washington's top diplomat, Clinton linked the attacks which left 166 people dead to those in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001 and Friday's deadly hotel bombings in Jakarta.
"These events are seared in our collective memory," she told a news conference at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel, where she is staying and where 31 guests and staff lost their lives during the Islamist militant siege. "The United States will work with the Indian government, the Indonesian government and other nations and peoples to seek peace and security and confront and defeat these violent extremists."
Clinton denied that President Barack Obama's administration was pressuring India into seeking peace with Pakistan so the latter could focus entirely on beating an Islamist insurgency on its border with Afghanistan, a U.S. priority. "The U.S...is very supportive of steps that the governments take but we are not in any way involved in or promoting any particular position," she told the news conference.