Washington Star/Evening Star

BOMBAY.-Vice President Spiro T. Agnew expressed U.S. sympathy today for India's burden in caring for 6 million refugees from the fighting in East Pakistan and said Washington probably will seek to give New Delhi "the additional economic assistance to handle this matter".

He said he brought no specific promises of assistance, but told newsmen aboard Air Force Two as it flew here from Singapore for a 90-minute refueling stop that he believes more U.S. aid to India will be under "continued consideration" by the State Department. He is en route to the Middle East.

Outside Bombay Airport, several hundred Indians demonstrated against continued U.S. military shipments to Pakistan. Police kept the demonstrators from the airport, which was cordoned off to everyone except persons with plane tickets.

Agnew, on a 10-nation, month-long goodwill tour, said an improved attitude in the Arab world toward the United States has strengthened chances for a major U.S. role in settling Middle East problems.

The vice president, whose next scheduled stop is Kuwait, said he will not try to play a role in the Middle East negotiations hut will try to get more understanding and sympathy for the Nixon administrations' peace efforts.

Agnew is to spend nearly two days in the oil-rich little Persian Gulf kingdom of Kuwait, the highest-ranking American official ever to visit there. On Thursday he will cross the Arabian peninsula to Jidda, on the west coast of Saudi Arabia.

The vice president is carrying to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia a message that the U.S. government seeks a balance of power that will assure the security of all nations.

He told newsmen in Singapore yesterday that in the Middle East the Nixon administration has tried to counter the increased Soviet naval presence in the Mediterranean and Moscow's aid to Egypt by keeping "the Israeli government supplied with sufficient disincentive to anyone to attack them" while at the same time "attempting to maintain a non-hostile posture toward the Arab republics."