WASHINGTON: The U.S. is looking forward to the first summit meeting between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reset India-U.S. ties that had gone adrift in the last days of the previous government.
In what analysts describe as a significant foreign policy move, Modi is reported to have accepted Obama's invitation to visit Washington in September-end, leaving aside the perceived bitterness over revocation of his U.S. visa in 2005.
The U.S. was much behind its European partners in reaching out to Modi with its former US ambassador to New Delhi, Nancy Powell, making the first high level contact with the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate in only February.
But Modi led BJP's "resounding" victory quickly ended Washington's hesitation with Obama making a call to congratulate "candidate Modi" and invite him to the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was quick to "echo" the invitation.
"As President Obama and Secretary Kerry both said, we look forward to welcoming the prime minister to Washington," State department spokesperson Marie Harf told reporters Thursday when asked to confirm if Modi was coming in September.
But "nothing to announce on timing at this point," she said.
Nor did Harf "have any more details" of what would be on the agenda of the Modi-Obama summit. "We said we look forward to welcoming him," she simply repeated.
