Whatever critics back home may say about media hype and optics but lack of “deliverables”, the United States regards Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s just concluded visit as “extraordinarily successful”, so much so that his talks with President Barack Obama are reckoned to have “re-energised” the course for US-India partnership.
“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 group of foreign correspondents, adding: “We’re excited to be moving forward with a re-energised strategic partnership.”
President Barack Obama, apart from hosting a private dinner on Day 1 of Modi’s visit to Washington and holding an extended formal round of discussions on Day 2, demonstrated a spontaneous gesture of personally conducting the Prime Minister around the Martin luther King Memorial. It indicated “just how comfortable that they had gotten to be”, Reiner commented.
Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal saw the Modi visit in terms of virtually re-launching the bilateral relationship, that anyway is not just Government-to-Government, but one that extends across to various sectors of the two countries.
Meanwhile, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, staying back after the Modi visit, held meetings on Thursday with Secretary of State John Kerry and US counterpart Susan Rice.
Kerry and Doval held consultations on US-India security cooperation and other issues of bilateral interest, building on the discussions during the Modi visit. Defence cooperation, international terrorism and terrorism finance, and law enforcement cooperation were among the topics focused upon, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said.
A White House readout on Rice’s meeting with Doval termed it a follow-up on the Obama-Modi meetings. “They discussed how we can best build on the accomplishments from the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington to strengthen the US-India strategic partnership for the benefit of citizens in both countries and beyond,” it said.