US President Joe Biden affirmed partnership with India as “one of the most important relationships” as he met with PM Narendra Modi virtually on Monday.
US President Joe Biden affirmed partnership with India as “one of the most important relationships” as he met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually on Monday. According to the background press call by the Biden administration on US President’s meeting with PM Modi, the senior White House official said on record, “During the course of the meeting, President Biden affirmed that our partnership with India is one of our most important relationships, and the two leaders had a chance to have an hourlong, very candid conversation to discuss a range of bilateral and global issues.”
“The meeting was warm and productive, and they covered a lot of ground,” the official said describing the Biden-Modi meet who met ahead of the India-US 2+2 ministerial dialogue involving US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, US defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, External Affairs Minister Dr. S Jaishankar and Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in Washington.
spoke today with Prime Minister Modi of India. We committed to strengthening our defense, economic, and people-to-people relationship to together seek a peaceful and prosperous world. pic.twitter.com/o30ij9reIY — President Biden (@POTUS) April 11, 2022
Earlier, on Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki had said that Biden believed that the US-India partnership is the most important relationship that Washington has in the world. Speaking about the “two-plus-two” dialogue on April 8 before the meeting took place on April 11, Psaki had said, “President Biden believes our partnership with India is one of the most important relationships we have in the world.”
‘India is going to make own judgements’
Further, a senior Biden administration official underscored that “India is going to make its own judgments” when it comes to ‘picking sides’ in the Russia-Ukraine conflict which has now entered day 47. Following the virtual meeting between both leaders, the US official said, “India is going to make its own judgments. Prime Minister Modi brought up the situation, again, in his public remarks, and there was discussion. I mean, the President shared his views, and Prime Minister Modi shared his views.”
“You will have seen in recent days that India made some pretty strong statements in New York condemning the killings of civilians, supporting calls for an independent investigation. India is also providing humanitarian relief material to Ukraine, including medicine and other supplies,” the official said.
So we’re going to continue these discussions with India. I think India will make its own decisions, but we’re going to continue the discussions,” they added.
