During US trip, Modi will also meet one-on-one with five chief executives of top American companies on September 23, reports Asian Lite News
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden will have the opportunity to talk about the broader threat of terrorism and situation in Afghanistan, said a senior Biden administration official, adding that they will discuss ways to work together to fight a common enemy of terrorism.
Prime Minister Modi and Biden will hold the first in-person bilateral meet on September 24 in the US. The meeting will take place before the first-in-person Quad Leaders meeting.
In a briefing, the official said: “This will be the first in-person meeting [of President Biden] with Prime Minister Modi on Friday, and it will be an opportunity to really go from strength to strength from the point of view of our global partnership with India, by working together to uphold a free and open Indo-Pacific and our two countries were both vital in the global fight against COVID-19. And by taking conservative actions to address the climate crisis.”
The official said that the discussion between Biden and PM Modi will give momentum to the Quad discussion.
“In the bilateral talks with Prime Minister Modi, the two leaders will have the opportunity to talk about the broader threat of counterterrorism, and the situation in Afghanistan and how we can work together to fight, a common enemy of terrorism, as well as to talk about a range of issues that development will have the opportunity to compare notes,” the official said.
The official also sketched out how President Biden will use his speech at the United Nations on Tuesday to stress that ending the military engagement in Afghanistan will open a new chapter of “intensive diplomacy.”
President Biden will leave the White House on Monday afternoon to travel to New York. Biden is to meet UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres late on Monday afternoon, give his first speech as president to the UN General Assembly at mid-morning on Tuesday, meet Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison afterward in New York, then return to Washington to meet British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“The president will essentially drive home the message that ending the war in Afghanistan closed a chapter focused on war and opens a chapter focused on … purposeful, effective, intensive American diplomacy,” the official said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to the United States this week to attend the first in-person Quad Leaders Summit and address the UN general debate.
He will also have a bilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden. This will be PM Modi’s second visit abroad since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. His first such visit was to Bangladesh earlier this year.
During the significant visit to the US, PM Modi would on September 24 participate in the Leaders’ Summit of the Quadrilateral Framework in Washington along with his US, Japanese and Australian counterparts.
The bilateral meeting with the US President is also scheduled for the day. This is PM Modi’s first visit to the US since Joe Biden became the President.
Meeting with Harris
Modi will also have bilateral meetings with vice president Kamala Harris (September 23) in the course of a busy three-day trip to the US that will see him addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York as the first speaker of the day.
According to people in US and Indian diplomatic circles, Modi will also meet one-on-one with five chief executives of top American companies on September 23. While Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to be one of the five who will meet the Indian PM in Washington, the other names are still being finalised. The same day, Modi will also have bilateral meetings with Suga and Morrison.
On the second day of the visit, the Indian PM will attend a series of meetings at the White House. This will be his first meeting with Biden after the latter became US President and his first ever in-person meeting with Harris. He has met Biden before, on his first visit to the US as prime minister in 2014. Biden was vice-president at the time in the administration of President Barack Obama.Modi is expected to leave for New York soon after the Quad dinner on September 24.
Modi last addressed UNGA in-person 2019 as the 2020 meetings were held virtually amid a raging Covid-19 pandemic that had hit New York state and city the hardest in the US at the time, turning them into ground zero of the worst public health crisis faced by the world in more than 100 years.
While Air India has asked permission from Islamabad for overflight of PM Modi’s Air India One Boeing 777-300ER jet, the aircraft has enough range to avoid Pakistani airspace on its direct flight to Washington.
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