U.S. Working On Ambitious Roadmap For PM Modi-Barack Obama Meeting: Nisha Biswal

NEW YORK: The U.S. is looking forward to a "very substantive and consequential" visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington later next month and is working on a "pretty ambitious roadmap" for his bilateral meeting with President Barack Obama, a top American official said.

"We have a pretty ambitious roadmap and workload over the next six weeks and we look forward to a very substantive and consequential visit for Prime Minister (Modi) and look forward to being able to really put a great deal of meat on the bones in terms of this very important relationship that the President has characterised as a defining partnership for the U.S. in the 21st century," Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal said.

Speaking at the Foreign Press Centre on 'U.S. Foreign Policy Priorities in India', Biswal said the India-U.S. relationship is at a "pivotal moment of opportunity".

"This is a relationship that carries a great deal of importance and meaning to the U.S. and is at a critical moment of opportunity and we want to make sure we work very closely with our counterparts in India in realising that opportunity," she said.

India and the U.S. discussed a broad range of issues in the Strategic Dialogue that was chaired by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in New Delhi on August 1.