- Indian PM calls US president ‘my close friend’, as two leaders discuss how to bring the landmark Paris climate change agreement into force as quickly as possible
US President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday welcomed the start of preparatory work on six nuclear reactors in India, a key step in closing the first deal stemming from a US-India civil nuclear accord struck over a decade ago.
The two leaders said in a joint statement that India and the US Export-Import Bank intend to work together toward a competitive financing package for the project and will work to finalize contractual agreements by June 2017.
“Once completed, the project would be among the largest of its kind, fulfilling the promise of the US-India civil nuclear agreement and demonstrating a shared commitment to meet India’s growing energy needs while reducing reliance on fossil fuels,” the joint statement said.
India supports enacting climate accord:
Narendra Modi has expressed support for the enactment this year of a worldwide climate accord reached in Paris, the White House said on Tuesday.
“I believe what Prime Minister Modi has said about this is that India shares the objective that the United States has laid out, which is to see the agreement come into force this year,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at a news briefing after President Barack Obama met with Modi at the White House.
Modi said that the US and India are cooperating on issues of global concern, including nuclear security, climate change and terrorism. He referred to Obama as “my close friend” and said the two nations will continue working “shoulder to shoulder”.
A flag-bearing military honor guard greeted Modi as he arrived at the entrance to the West Wing for talks the White House said would focus on climate change and clean energy, security and defense cooperation, and economic growth.
This is Modi’s fourth visit to the US since he took office two years ago, and his seventh meeting with Obama. On Wednesday, the Indian leader addresses a joint meeting of Congress.
His visit began Monday, when he placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. He also met Attorney General Loretta Lynch during a ceremony marking the repatriation of more than 200 artifacts to the Indian government.
Modi and Obama seem to have forged a bond. When Obama visited India last year, Modi pulled the president into a bear hug as he stepped off Air Force One, and the two leaders have publicly praised each other.
Modi “transcends the ancient and the modern,” Obama wrote in Time magazine. “Barack and I have formed a bond, a friendship,” Modi said.
But Indian political analysts see the Indian leader carefully shaping the country’s political narrative by putting himself at the center of any diplomatic achievement.
India has long felt slighted by the global powers, seeing itself as a powerful, highly educated country that is all-too-often dismissed for its poverty, dirty streets and the lingering power of its caste system.
The respect is particularly sweet in Washington. Modi was denied a visa to visit the U.S. in 2005, three years after religious riots killed more than 1,000 Muslims in the western state of Gujarat, where he was then the top official. American officials largely avoided contact with him over suspicions that he was involved in the rioting or did not do enough to stop them, until he became prime minister in the 2014 landslide elections
Modi is on a five-nation tour that has also taken him to Switzerland, Afghanistan and Qatar. After the U.S., he will visit Mexico.
In Washington, he’ll also meet congressional leaders and top business officials.
Obama has much to gain from good relations with Modi, from increased U.S.-India trade to closer ties to another country worried about the rise of China.
In many ways, the Washington-New Delhi relationship has not lived up to its potential since a landmark 2008 nuclear energy agreement. That pact had seemed to signal the end of three decades of Cold War suspicions, when the U.S. was more focused on ties with India’s archrival, Pakistan, and many in Washington believed India was far too friendly with the Soviet Union.
But things haven’t always gone as planned: There was the 2013 arrest in New York of an Indian diplomat, which infuriated India, and displeasure in Washington over a 2010 Indian liability law on accidents at nuclear power plants. U.S. lawmakers say it’s still too hard for Americans to invest in India, even with some easing of restrictions under Modi.
Still, U.S.-India trade has grown dramatically since the 2008 accord, expanding from $60 billion in 2009 to $107 billion in 2015. The U.S. has also become a major supplier of military hardware to India. Progress is expected to be announced Tuesday on U.S. investment in nuclear power in India and on commitments in combating climate change.
