The United States and India have turned the page on a bitter row which soured ties earlier this year and Washington is eager to welcome new Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a top official said Wednesday. President Barack Obama will welcome Modi to the White House on September 29 and 30 for the first time since he led his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to a crushing victory in India's May elections.
The United States has a high stake in being part of India's growth and development, said Assistant Secretary for South Asia Nisha Biswal, stressing there is "a natural affiliation between our two societies and our two private sectors." As Modi pushes an agenda to strengthen India's economy "the United States is deeply interested in partnering with India to be part of that domestic transformation."
Washington has worked hard to restore relations after a series of spats, including a crisis in December when US authorities arrested an Indian diplomat in New York for allegedly mistreating her housekeeper, triggering fury in New Delhi. "We have had our ups and downs," Biswal admitted to reporters, but she stressed the two nations now had a "much better understanding and awareness... of each other's requirements."
"While we did go through a fairly tough time earlier in the year, we are now in a much stronger place than even we were before that incident in terms of how we work together," she insisted. Modi's White House welcome will be a remarkable transformation for a man once refused a US visa, after being accused of failing to stop 2002 riots by Hindu extremists against minority Muslims when he was chief minister of Gujarat state. Modi has always denied any wrong-doing.
Even though Washington was initially slow to court Modi, seen as less keen to engage the United States than his predecessor Manmohan Singh, US officials have moved swiftly since his election. US Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel have already travelled to India to meet the new prime minister, arriving hot on the heels of visits by top European leaders.
Two-way trade between India and the US now tops some $100 billion annually, Biswal said, while private US investment in India has reached around $28 billion. The United States has also now surpassed Russia as India's leading defense partner, with over $10 billion in defense trade. As the world's second most populous nation develops, the US is "deeply interested and invested in allowing and enabling India to grow in a way that is smarter, and more sustainable, and more efficient in terms of the impact on population (and) on the environment," Biswal said.
There was no reason to hold up growing US investment as India seeks to improve infrastructure for its 1.2 billion people, she said. India is a "center of innovation and entrepreneurship" which can benefit from the experiences of US best practices, Biswal said, adding that the US had "cutting-edge" technology to offer. Modi's two-day visit will focus on how the two nations can cooperate across a wide area including energy supply, trade issues, health and science and security co-operation, Biswal said, adding there was "a robust agenda" for the talks. "India lends a voice which very much aligns with our own goals and objectives on stability and security across the region," Biswal added, highlighting such concerns as the freedom of navigation and combating extremism.
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