Indian envoy Navtej Sarna said 9/11 and Y2K brought India and US closer post the Cold War era

Washington: Two major developments -- the 9/11 terror attack and Y2K bug -- brought India and the US together in a post-Cold War era, India's envoy to the US has said.

As India faced US sanctions in the aftermath of the Pokhran nuclear tests, the two countries were initiating dialogue in the years thereafter, the Indian Ambassador to the US, Navtej Singh Sarna, told a Washington audience.

Noting that objective changes did take place, Mr Sarna said India unleashed its potential through economic reforms and other changes and global conditions changed to help this.

"Fundamentally what changed was that we opened our minds to each other. That we began to trust each other and not to second guess each other. That we actually began to talk to each other rather than talk at or talk past each other, which we often had done in the past, Mr Sarna said.