PM meets Obama at G20 Summit

Toronto, Jun 28: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President Barack Obama held their second substantive dialogue on Sunday, Jun 27. During the meeting they are understood to have discussed on the burning issues such as terrorism, global economy and many other of mutual concern.

After reviewing bilateral ties on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington in Apr 2010, this was the the first meeting between the two leaders.

"Whenever the Indian Prime Minister speaks, the whole world listens to him," said Obama.

The two leaders are also understood to have discussed about the global economic recovery and the G20 Summit. At the Summit, India and the US had cautioned against winding up of the government funding.

"Very warm welcome awaits Obama, the First Lady Michelle and their children when they visit India," said PM during the meeting.

PM stated that during the visit, Obama himself can see what India is trying to do, the difficulties of managing social and economic transformation in the framework of a democracy committed to the rule of law, committed to all fundamental human freedoms.

"I think that's what India seeks to achieve," said Singh.

Obama also recalled the State Visit of Singh in Nov 2009, when the two leaders decided to launch a Strategic Dialogue between the two countries.

"We instituted what we termed a strategic partnership that involves all of our ministers at the highest levels working together to try to find ways to enhance commercial ties, security ties, coordination on critical multilateral issues like climate change," said Barack Obama.

The US President included "and as a consequence, (External Affairs) Minister S M Krishna led a delegation to Washington to follow up, and working with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, conducted some very high-level talks. I had the opportunity to participate in that dialogue."

Obama said US and India would continue to see how businesses of both countries can get to work together and then generating recommendations to "each of us in terms of how we can improve ties between the United States and India."

OneIndia News