Hussain, who is on a weeklong tour of India that began on Aug. 1 and is to end today, made the comments during an interview with India’s leading English daily newspaper, The Times of India.

It was brought to Hussain’s attention that in 1969 India was close to joining the OIC but the idea was opposed by Pakistan. Asked whether the US could influence its regional ally, Pakistan, to accept India’s membership of the OIC, Hussain said Pakistan is an individual identity within the OIC and is part of the process by which the OIC determines who can join it. “We leave that to the OIC and its members to decide,” he said.

Asked whether there is any particular reason why Obama selected him, an Indian-American Muslim, to represent the US at the OIC, Hussain said, “I started off in the administration working as an attorney. I didn’t come to the administration as a Muslim.”

Replying to another question about the US engaging the Muslim world after Obama came to the White House and how the US could convert positive words into policies, Hussain said, “We think that we have made tremendous progress since the president came into office. We still have a lot of work to do. But we see progress on three fronts. First, the president has created a comprehensive framework for engaging Muslim communities around the world. He realized that our engagement should be based on the fact that people all over the world share many concerns and we should engage one fourth of the world population on the basis of the belief of a fringe group.

“Secondly, we have created partnerships in a number of areas, including programs in education and healthcare in India. The third major area is political as the president talked about the source of tension between the US and Muslim world. The US is committed to ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And we are actively seeking a two-state solution to the Israeli- Palestine conflict. These are all areas of change. Just getting the relationship back on track and creating a framework for engagement is a huge accomplishment.”