Ahead of a high-level strategic defence dialogue, the US on Friday said it wants to offer top of the shelf military technology to India.

The offer was made by Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Michele Flournoy just before Defence Minister A K Antony arrives Washington, heading a high-level military delegation for talks with his US counterpart Robert Gates.

“As we go forward, we are looking for ways to support India’s military modernisation,” Flournoy said as Washington hopes to bag substantial contracts in India’s massive military modernisation programme running into billions of dollars.

“We want to be able to be in a position to offer India the best technology available to cooperate with them on development of their defence capabilities and to continue to work as partners in, whether it’s counter piracy operations, maritime security operations, peacekeeping and so forth,” said Flournoy, who was recently in India.

“I had a very positive trip in New Delhi. I think that there’ great potential for further deepening and strengthening of the cooperation between India and the United States, particularly in the defence domain,” she said.

“The truth is the relationship has already grown substantially in recent years in terms of the amount of exercising we are doing together and cooperation in various domains,” she said.

“I think when you look at US interests, Indian interests, our values, democratic values, there is a lot of strong commonality that I think creates a foundation for cooperation,” she added.