President Obama, PM Modi Chemistry Can Lead To Positive Outcomes: U.S.

"There's a great affinity between the United States and India and our people. But there's also a history that is complicated and that would've made it seem highly unlikely that a U.S. President would be sitting with India's leaders at the Republic Day ceremony as Chief Guest, as recently as well certainly over the course of recent decades," Rhodes said.

"President Obama was personally honoured to receive that invitation. I think he saw it as building on a successful summit with Prime Minister Modi," said Rhodes, who is considered to be a close confidant of the U.S. President on foreign policy and national security matters.

"President signalled this priority when he took office, and he did a lot of good work with Prime Minister Singh. Now, I think this invitation has great symbolic importance, and a lot of this visit, frankly, is events that are very important symbolically to the Indian people, but also that, I think, sets the table for deepened bilateral and people to people ties," he said.

Rhodes said for Obama to be invited as the first U.S. President to attend as the chief guest sends a very important message to the world, as well as to the American and Indian people about their commitment to embrace the potential of this relationship.

Obama, who would be spending several hours in the open with hundreds and thousands of people along the majestic Rajpath on January 26 has never attended such an event overseas, he said.

Even domestically, the inauguration is the only event that can be compared with his participation in India's Republic Day Parade, Rhodes said.

"I do not think Obama has attended any national day ceremonies as President. I'm fairly confident of that; I've been on just about all of his foreign travel and I can't recall President Obama attending any other national day ceremony," he said.

"It's a unique event. It is of great symbolic importance, given the U.S.-India history and given the importance of Republic Day in India. And so that's why he was more than pleased to accept the invitation," Rhodes said in response to a question.
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