Modi may travel to US for first in-person meeting with Biden later this year

Prime Minister Narendra Modi may visit Washington D.C. later this year for his first in-person meeting with US President Joe Biden, if the Covid-19 pandemic does not worsen in India and the United States again.

The officials of India and the United States are discussing the possibility of scheduling the visit of the Prime Minister to Washington D.C. and his meeting with the US President some time between September and November this year.

Biden spoke to Modi over phone twice after taking over as the US President on January 20 last. The two leaders also attended two virtual multilateral summits over the past few months. But if Modi travels to Washington D.C. and holds talks with Biden, it will be the first meeting between the two leaders after the change of guard in the White House.

A source confirmed to DH that the Biden Administration had recently shared with New Delhi its plan to invite the Prime Minister to Washington D.C. later this year. The two sides had some discussion, but would take a call on scheduling the Prime Minister’s visit and his meeting with the US President only after assessing the Covid-19 situation in both the countries a few weeks later, the source in New Delhi said.

Apart from his bilateral meeting with the US President in White House, the visit of the Prime Minister to Washington D.C. may also create an opportunity for the first in-person summit of the ‘Quad’ as the US President is keen to host Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan and Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia around the same time.

“Our goal is to hold an in person Quad meeting…very ambitious meeting here in Washington in the fall with all leaders in attendance,” said Kurt Campbell, the coordinator for Indo-Pacific at the US National Security Council. He was speaking at an event hosted by Center for New American Security, a think-tank based in Washington D.C.

The ‘Quad’ is a coalition forged by India, Japan, Australia and the US in 2007 and revived in 2017 – in order to create a bulwark of democratic nations to counter China’s expansionist move and hegemonic aspirations in the Indo-Pacific region.

Modi, Biden, Suga and Morrison had held the first ever summit of the ‘Quad’ through video-calls on March 12, elevating the four-nation coalition to the level of the leaders.

They were expected to hold another in-person summit on the sideline of the G7 summit hosted by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at Cornwall in South West England from next Friday to Sunday. But Modi decided against travelling to the United Kingdom to attend the conclave, in view of the second Covid-19 wave, which wreaked havoc across India.

Biden, Suga and Morrison, however, are expected to travel to the UK for the summit

India is not a member of the G7, which comprises Japan, Italy, France, Germany, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, while the European Union is a ‘non-enumerated’ member of the bloc. Johnson, however, had invited Modi to attend the conclave as a “Special Invitee”. Morrison too would attend it as a “Special Invitee”.