GG News Bureau
Washington, 2nd Feb. US President Joe Biden has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a state visit this summer, according to sources.
According to multiple sources, the invitation has been accepted in principle, and officials on both sides are now working on mutually convenient dates. It is currently in the early stages of logistical planning.
Given that India is hosting a series of G-20 events this year, culminating in a summit in September, which Mr Biden is expected to attend, officials from both sides are looking for appropriate dates in June and July when not only both the US House of Representatives and the Senate are in session, but Prime Minister Modi has a couple of days at his disposal when he does not have a predetermined domestic or international commitment.
The state visit will take at least a couple of days and will include, among other things, an address to a joint session of the US Congress and a state dinner at the White House.
In addition to the G-20, Prime Minister Modi has a full schedule of domestic and international commitments until the fall, when he will begin campaigning for a series of critical state assembly elections later this year.
Sources, who requested anonymity because they are not permitted to discuss this sensitive issue at this time, did not reveal when or who delivered Biden’s personal invitation to the Prime Minister’s Office.
Last December, Biden hosted French President Emanual Macron for his first state dinner.
Meanwhile, a senior administration official told reporters that Biden believes that partnership between India and the United States, the world’s leading knowledge economies, is critical in addressing major global challenges.
“President Biden views that as two of the world’s leading knowledge economies, this partnership is essential. He believes that no successful and enduring effort to address any of the major challenges that the world faces today, whether we’re looking at food or energy or health security, the climate crisis, or upholding a free and open Indo-Pacific, going to work without a US-India partnership at its heart,” a senior administration official told a group of Indian reporters here.
Prime Minister Modi described the US-India relationship in Tokyo last year as a partnership of trust and a force for good global peace and stability.
“The US really views that this is in our strategic interest to support India’s rise as a global power. We see that in both the Quad and as India’s Presidency of the G-20. This describes a greater vision of this coherent US-Indo Pacific strategy that requires that both the US and India pull closer together and overcome long-standing obstacles to doing so,” said the senior administration official, requesting anonymity to reporters.
On Tuesday, Ajit K Doval, India’s National Security Advisor, and his American counterpart Jake Sullivan launched the India-US initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies, or iCET, which officials on both sides described as the “Next Big Thing” in the two countries’ bilateral relationship.
“While geopolitics is one dimension of what’s happening here, this is sort of more important, bigger than that. The US view is that our relationship with India is essential not just because of the way the world looks today, but rather that this is the next logical milestone of our relationship,” the official said.
“We view that what’s going on here it’s really even larger than 2006 (the year of the India-US civil nuclear deal),” he said.
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