US visit: Modi to meet Biden, other Quad leaders on September 24
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: The first, in-person bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden, scheduled for September 24 in Washington, will take stock of the relationship between the two largest democracies, and how to take it to the next level, while helping in reinforcing and giving momentum to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) group, a White House official said on Tuesday.
Modi is scheduled to visit the US from September 22 to 24. He will address the UN General Assembly and is expected to meet US Vice-President Kamala Harris and Apple chief Tim Cook as well.
The US President, who as Vice-President in the Obama Administration had met Modi, will host the Indian PM at the White House for their first bilateral meeting on September 24. Later on that day, Biden will also host the first-ever in-person Quad Leaders’ Summit at the White House with Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Biden and Modi have spoken virtually on multiple occasions after the former, a Democrat, became US president in January 2021. Their last telephonic conversation took place on April 26.
“The leaders will be focused on strengthening the deep ties between their people and shared democratic values that have underpinned the special bond between the United States and India for more than seven decades,” a White House official said.
“The Biden-Harris Administration has enhanced our partnership with India by working together to uphold a free and open Indo-Pacific, leading efforts to end the Covid-19 pandemic, and taking concerted action to address the climate crisis,” he said.
The Biden-Modi meeting would be an opportunity to go from strength to strength, from the point of view of the partnership with India.
“So, the bilateral discussion between the US and India will help reinforce and give momentum to the Quad discussion because many of the topics are very much interrelated,” the official said.
“Additionally, in the bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Modi, the two leaders will have the opportunity to talk about counter-terrorism, the Afghanistan situation and how we can work together to fight terrorism, our common enemy, as well as about a range of regional issues and developments where we’ll have the opportunity to compare notes.”
The relationship between the United States and India goes so much deeper than just a government-to-government relationship.
“It is a relationship between the two peoples. I think Prime Minister Modi and President Biden want to talk about the ways of pulling our countries even closer together at basically every level of interaction between our societies,” added the official.
