-China push to get the deal entered into force by the end of 2016.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama are scheduled to meet at the White House today for over two hours that will include a working lunch to be attended by Vice President Joe Biden.
Obama was expected to say he was looking forward to India’s “imminent entry” into the MTCR when the two leaders address the press after their seventh bilateral meeting, sources aware of its agenda said.
The also agreed to continue pursuing a U.S. -India Totalization Agreement later this year. “And I would anticipate that they’ll have a discussion about what more the U.S. and India can do to advance the climate agenda”, he said. President Obama also recalled fond memories of being a part of the Republic Day celebrations on 26 January, 2015.
Although few expect any major announcements and agreements from the trip, it provides the US, which is India’s largest trading partner, an opportunity to forge closer strategic ties with the country – a key plank of the Obama administration’s effort to counterbalance the rise of China in Asia.
For decades, US-India relations had been beset by lingering Cold War enmity and India’s covert development of a nuclear bomb.
Obama also hailed an agreement for United States firm Westinghouse to build six nuclear reactors in India.
The two leaders held a meeting at the Oval Office in the White House.
The PM also said, “I am thankful for the help and support that my friend President Obama has extended with regard to membership in MTCR and NSG”.
“It’s my understanding that (this step) represents a more ambitious goal then India had previously laid out in terms of their timing of signing onto the agreement and so we obviously welcome that announcement from the Indian government”, Earnest said at the White House briefing Tuesday.
As Obama and Modi met on Tuesday, activists called on the USA president to use the visit to raise concerns over India’s progress in combating modern slavery.
Last month, Modi told The Wall Street Journal that he and Obama have “have a special friendship, a special wavelength”.
PM Modi arrived here on Monday from Switzerland on his second bilateral visit to the U.S. after his trip in September, 2014.
The visit is meant to consolidate and celebrate a bilateral relationship that has grown closer and stronger over the last few years.
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“Modi and Obama deserve credit for not shying away from historically contentious issues, like curbing risky hydrofluorocarbons”, Steer said adding that the announcement signals that the United States and India are overcoming the few remaining differences between them.
