WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama will have his first meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in London on April 2, the White House announced on Wednesday.
In recent comments, officials of the Obama administration have spoken of their desire to forge ‘a stronger, more comprehensive relationship’ with India to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg had earlier this week talked of the two countries now poised to take their relations to a ‘third stage’ to address global challenges.
Apart from bilateral issues, the two leaders are expected to focus on the global economic crisis, climate change and the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
For Obama, save for a day’s sojourn to neighbouring Canada, it will be the first substantive foreign trip as US President. Besides the meeting with Singh, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama would be having bilaterals with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
He will also call on Queen Elizabeth II.
“I think you’ll see the President talk about – and there will be some broad agreement (at the G-20 summit) on a changing of the rules of the road and financial regulation,” Gibbs said during a briefing. Disagreeing with a questioner wondering if Obama was on the defensive going to the summit in the wake of China’s comments on the dollar and Czechoslavakia’s European Union President criticising the US stimuls, Gibbs said: “I think the President looks forward to working in concert with the G-20 to get our economy moving again.”