'Our Goal is to Be India's Best Friend', Says U.S. Vice President Joe Biden

WASHINGTON:  India and the United States kicked off a crucial dialogue in Washington with the U.S. leaders saying America wants to be "India's best friend" and India asserting that their relationship is defined by natural synergy of democracies.

The assertions were made at a business conclave on the eve of the first Strategic and Commercial Dialogue that would set the stage for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's third summit meeting with President Barack Obama within a year next week.

"Our goal is to become India's best friend," U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said addressing the 40th Leadership summit of U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC), the largest bilateral trade association in the U.S. comprised of 300 top U.S. and a score of Indian companies.

"The President and I, and the entire administration believe that the India-U.S. relationship will be a relationship that will go a long way in defining the 21st century," he said.

There was so much potential for trade and investment between the two countries, Mr Biden said but more reforms were needed. The U.S., he said, will do everything to support PM Modi's reforms.

Quoting Indian Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore's words that "We cannot cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water," Mr Biden invited the two sides to "cross the sea together."

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who would co-chair the strategic side of the dialogue with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, said the India-U.S. relationship "is defined by natural synergy of our democracies."

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