Arun Kumar / IANS

Washington, Nov 13: Preparations are well underway to ensure a "good, substantive" schedule for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when he comes here later this month on the first state visit hosted by President Barack Obama.

"Of course, we all look forward to the visit of the prime minister later this month" State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters Thursday. "And I know that preparations are well underway to ensure a good, substantive schedule for him."

Other US officials and the Indian ambassador to the US, Meera Shankar, have said that Obama and Manmohan Singh will create a framework to take their already "comprehensive partnership of mutual trust and confidence" to "a new level".

Manmohan Singh and his wife will be Obama's guests at his first official state dinner at the White House on Nov 24.

Kelly's statement about the visit came in response to a question about whether there was a problem in US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard C. Holbrooke's long delayed plans to visit India or whether he was waiting for Manmohan Singh's trip.

As for Holbrooke, "the only travel that he has planned right now is Berlin, Paris, Moscow, Kabul," where he is going for consultations with government officials "as part of continued efforts to stay in close touch with allies and partners on Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said. "He doesn't have any other travel planned at this time," he said.

In reply to another question about issues concerning terrorism coming up during the Manmohan Singh visit in the context of the arrest last week of two Pakistan-born Chicago men on charges of plotting a terror attack in India, Kelly said India had been briefed on the case

Pakistan-born American national David Coleman Headley and his Pakistan-born Canadian associate Tahawwur Hussain Rana were arrested in connection with a foiled plot to launch terror attacks in India and Denmark at the behest of Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT).

"I do know that we have - there exist channels for us to share information. And I know that the Government of India has been briefed on this case," he said but he could not say whether the US Federal Bureau of Investigation was helping US in preventing another Mumbai type attack. "I don't know the answer to your very specific question."