President Joe Biden will participate in a bilateral meeting with PM Narendra Modi on September 24.
United States President Joe Biden will hold a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 24, the White House announced on Monday.
"The President will participate in a bilateral meeting with His Excellency Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of the Republic of India," it said on the maiden meeting between the two leaders on Friday.
This will be the first in-person meeting (of President Biden) with PM Modi on Friday. It'll be opportunity to really go from strength to strength from the point of view of our global partnership with India, by working together to uphold free and open Indo-Pacific, senior Biden admininstration official said.
In the bilateral with PM Modi, the 2 leaders will have the opportunity to talk about the threat of counterterrorism & the situation in Afghanistan & how we can work together to fight a common enemy of terrorism, Biden administration official added.
The relationship between the US and India is deeper than just a government-to-government relationship, it really is a relationship between two people, the official mentioned.
Both leaders have spoken virtually on multiple occasions after Biden, a Democrat, became US president in January.
The last time Prime Minister Modi visited the US was in September 2019 when he and then US president Donald Trump, a Republican, addressed the high-profile Howdy-Modi event in Houston.
PM Modi will also be attending the first in-person Quad summit to be hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington.
The Quad leaders would discuss promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific, addressing the climate crisis and deepening their ties and advancing practical cooperation on areas like combatting COVID-19, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.
They will also discuss partnering on emerging technologies and cyberspace, she said.
“President Joseph R Biden, Jr will host the first-ever Quad Leaders Summit at the White House on September 24. President Biden is looking forward to welcoming to the White House Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan,” Psaki said.
The Biden-Harris administration has made elevating the Quad a priority, as seen through the first-ever Quad Leaders-level engagement in March, which was virtual, and now this Summit, which will be in-person, Psaki said.
In March, President Biden hosted the first-ever summit of the Quad leaders in a virtual format that vowed to strive for an Indo-Pacific region that is free, open, inclusive, anchored by democratic values and unconstrained by coercion, sending a message to China which has been behaving aggressively in the region.
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