Officials have said that the inaugural US-India strategic dialogue here next week would prepare the ground for President Barack Obama's visit to India in autumn.

Asserting "the Obama Administration attaches great importance to our relations with India," assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert O. Blake told reporters Friday, "Let me just say that there has not been any change."

Pointing to the fact that Obama had invited Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the first state visit of his administration last November "to reaffirm the importance that we attach to our relations with India, he said, "As President Obama himself has said, this will be one of our signature partnerships in the 21st century."

"One of the purposes of the strategic dialogue is to think through what are the big, new opportunities and where are the big areas of cooperation," Blake said suggesting sceptics perceptions would be best addressed "just by delivering results and by showing, in a concrete way, all of the various things that we're doing."

It has been reported that External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will lead a team of ministers and officials at the June 2-3 dialogue covering a wide range of areas, including high technology trade, science & technology, civil nuclear cooperation, agriculture, human resource development, security and other strategic issues.

After the dialogue "there will be deliverables" Blake said. But "the purpose of this dialogue is really to think strategically and, again, to get the key people who work on these issues together to think ahead to the President's visit and to think strategically about what we can do."

The report also noted that among the global and regional issues the situation in Afghanistan Pakistan region would be the key focus area. The two sides will also talk about Iran as "the United States and India both share a concern about Iran's nuclear ambitions, and both of us are opposed to any kind of nuclear arms for Iran." (With Inputs from Agencies)