US President Joe Biden has reportedly invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a state visit in either June or July. The invitation has been accepted in principle and Indian and US officials are working on mutually convenient dates, news agency PTI reported citing sources.
Sources said that President Biden is looking forward to meeting PM Modi in June or July as the US House of Representatives and the Senate will be in session at the time and Prime Minister Modi will have a couple of days at his disposal since he does not have any predetermined domestic or international engagements at the time.
The state visit will include an address to the joint session of the US Congress and a state dinner at the White House. Sources, however, did not reveal when the invitation was given and who delivered this personal invitation from Biden to the Prime Minister’s Office.
A senior US administration official said President Biden believes that the India-US partnership is essential in areas such as upholding a free and open Indo-Pacific, climate crisis, food security, health security, and energy security. Prime Minister Modi described the Indo-US relationship as a partnership of trust and force for global peace and stability while speaking in Tokyo last year.
The US administration official was quoted as saying by the news agency PTI, “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 India’s Presidency of the G-20. This describes a greater vision of this coherent US-Indo Pacific strategy that requires both the US and India pull closer together and overcome long-standing obstacles to doing so.”
The development comes after National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and his American counterpart Jake Sullivan launched the India-US initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies or iCET, described by officials as the “Next Big Thing” in the bilateral relationship between the two countries.
Commenting on this meeting, the US administration official quoted above said, “While geopolitics is one dimension of what’s happening here, this is sort of more important, bigger than that.” He further added that what is going on between India and the US vis-a-vis the Quad and Indo-Pacific is bigger than the India-US Civil Nuclear Deal in 2006.
(With PTI inputs)
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