Washington, Nov. 21: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who arrives in the US on Sunday afternoon, will approach key issues of Indian concern with a strategy elaborately crafted by his office and South Block that is designed not to yield an inch in protecting New Delhi’s interests.

Foreign secretary Nirupama Rao yesterday identified Afghanistan, disarmament, non-proliferation and terrorism among seven such issues which will be on top of the talks agenda between Singh and US President Barack Obama on Tuesday.

On Monday afternoon, Singh will honour the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) with his presence: he will travel to its premises in Washington for an exceptionally long two-hour programme for a head of government, which is being hosted jointly by the council and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

When it was announced about 10 days ago that Singh would go to the Council on Foreign Relations — instead of the other way round — many eyebrows were raised here.

His presence at the CFR is actually a few notches below his stature as the head of India’s government. According to the practice hitherto, only India’s cabinet ministers went to venues like this, usually the external affairs minister or the finance minister.

But Indian officials here and in New Delhi explained that the Prime Minister’s decision to personally reach out to the council and the Wilson Center was meant to decisively put down a campaign of attrition by the likes of Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution, that is chipping away at India’s long-held positions on disarmament and non-proliferation.

Talbott and several others of similar standing in Washington’s strategic community, many of them with Democratic Party credentials, have been vigorously campaigning for ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) by the US, now that the Democrats control the White House and both chambers of the US Congress.

The wisdom in South Block is that if the US Senate ratifies the CTBT, intense pressure will then follow on India, not only from the US, but the international community, to sign and ratify the treaty, which will close India’s nuclear options for ever.

Fortunately for Singh, however, CTBT will not be an issue between him and Obama at least during this visit to Washington.

Although ratification of the CTBT is his declared policy goal, the US President will be cagey about lecturing India on this issue — as he did in a letter to Singh in September 2008 — because Obama lacks, despite his party’s control of the 100-member Senate, the 67 votes that are mandatory for ratification of any treaty by the US.

The likes of Talbott are also taking positions that clash head on with India’s refusal to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty or NPT: India has a big stake in the next NPT Review Conference to be held in 2010.

Although Talbott’s position on these issues has been consistent, there is much heartburn in the government that despite being viewed as a friend of India, he has taken his battle against India’s position on nuclear issues even to India, casting his lot with opponents of the nuclear deal.

The PMO and South Block are seeking to send a message to the strategic community here by the Prime Minister’s presence at the CFR that support has its rewards. The council and the Wilson Center have been far more understanding and supportive of Indian positions on strategic issues.

In the run-up to Singh’s visit, Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, repeatedly attempted to travel to India, where he is seen as meddling in Indo-Pak issues and slyly seeking to expand his mandate into Kashmir.

Shortly after Obama’s election as President, India had privately made it plain to his transition team that any special envoy for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan appointed by an incoming Obama administration would not get a visa to visit New Delhi.

In the last few days, Holbrooke visited Berlin, Paris, Moscow, Munich, Islamabad and Kabul. India has been a singular omision from his itinerary among coutries which have a stake in Afghanistan.

India rebuffed Holbrooke to express its irritation with the Obama administration’s positions on Pakistan and Afghanistan, which New Delhi views as contrary to Indian interests and to send a clear message to Washington prior to Singh’s arrival here that the prime minister is no pushover on Pakistan or Afghanistan.

Asked about this, the US assistant secretary of state for South Asia, Robert Blake, took the diplomatic way out at a media briefing here on Singh’s visit.

Bake said “it has just been a question of many of the (Indian) interlocutors not being available (for Holbrooke) because they themselves are travelling in other parts of the world... There is a very deep desire on the part of ambassador Holbrooke to coordinate very closely with India. And we — I’m sure that Afghanistan and Pakistan will be a very important part of our discussions” during the prime minister's visit.

Yesterday, a very senior Indian official in the US, too said at a briefing on Singh’s visit that Holbrooke did not go to India because the two sides could not agree on dates for his visit.

In the practice of diplomacy, the inability to find convenient dates for meetings is a standard ploy when one side wants to snub the other or not have meetings.

New Delhi’s caution and the crafting of a strategy to protect its positions on issues of concern has not come a day soon.

Only days before the Prime Minister was to arrive here, influential elements in Washington which want to put India in its place nearly foisted as a senior official in the state department to deal with India the very peron who has been providing fodder to Islamabad to campaign against New Delhi's alleged intereference in Balochistan.Christine Fair, a former Rand Corporation expert on South Asia who is now an assistant professor in security studies at Georgetown University, was almost appointed by the Obama administration as deputy assistant secretary of state with specific charge of India.

But wisely, anticipating an uproar from the Indian American community and friends of India on Capitol Hill and elsewhere, she is on record as having turned down the appointment almost on the eve of the Prime Minister’s arrival here.