Washington : Describing India and China as two "rising stars" of this century, a top NATO official has said that is a need for the alliance to reach out to the Asian giants.

"I believe we should reach out to the rising stars of this century, such as China and India, where we have common security interests," NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen said on Feb 22 in his address to the Centre for New American Security, a Washington-based think tank at the Georgetown University. "We are pushing ahead with the transformation of our military forces to make them more flexible and more usable," he said.