NEW DELHI: US President Joe Biden arrived Friday for the G20 summit in India, where he hopes to seize on no-shows by Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin to boost Washington’s influence.
The US president received a Bollywood-style greeting after Air Force One landed, with dancers in flowing purple outfits gyrating to American pop music.
Biden met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi shortly after arrival, and will speak with other leaders on the “margins,” the White House said.
The president spent 52 minutes with Modi after a lavish welcome ceremony at the airport in a meeting the White Houst said was marked by “undeniable warmth and confidence” in one another.
Kurt Campbell, a Biden adviser on the Indo-Pacific, told reporters afterward that warm sentiments have replaced a sense of distrust and uncertainty that previously defined relations between the two countries.
“What I have seen grown over time is an undeniable warmth and confidence between the two leaders,” Campbell said.
Another adviser, Eileen Laubacher, senior director for South Asia at the White House National Security Council, added that Biden and Modi were “so comfortable discussing, really, the breadth of things that we’re trying to accomplish together.”
A joint statement issued after the meeting reaffirmed US-India partnerships on several fronts, especially with regard to computer chips, telecommunications, higher education, access to shipping
“This meeting will be taking place at the prime minister’s residence — so it is unusual in that respect,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Thursday aboard Air Force One.
“This is not your typical bilateral visit to India with meetings taking place in the prime minister’s office.”
* With AFP and AP
