Washington: Describing the just concluded US visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as extraordinarily successful, the White House has said that his meeting with President Barack Obama has re-energised the strategic relationship between the two largest democracies of the world.
“In sum, I would say that the assessment on our part is that the Prime Minister's visit was extraordinarily successful. It has provided a boost in terms of the vision and focus that we have for our bilateral relations,” Phil Reiner, Senior Director for India at the National Security Council, told a select group of foreign correspondents here.
“We're excited to be moving forward with a re-energised strategic partnership. The US continues to strongly support a prosperous India that plays an important role in the global stage, and I think the Prime Minister's visit really provided the opportunity for the two leaders to discuss that vision that's necessary in order to set the framework under which we are going to operate going forward,” Reiner said.
Modi met Obama at the White House this week and held talks on strengthening the bilateral ties. Obama hosted Modi for a private dinner at the White House and the next day the two leaders met at the Oval Office. He also joined Modi when the latter visited the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial soon after their meeting.
“This visit in some ways went a long ways towards re-energising and re-launching the bilateral relationship.
It's a relationship that fundamentally is not just government-to-government. It extends across all aspects of American society, American private sector, and engages the Indian society writ large and the Indian private sector, civil society, academic sector,” said Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal.
“That informed the nature of the conversations and it also informed the nature of the initiatives and the agenda between the two countries of how to harness this very rich set of connections between our two countries towards achieving shared objectives,” she said.
“So it was quite refreshing and energising to both leaders that the Prime Minister shared his very robust vision for India's transformation, and he talked about the kinds of things that he would like to be working on over his tenure, which I think resonated with the President, resonated certainly with Secretary (of State John) Kerry and all of us who had the opportunity to engage on that,” Biswal said.
