India says 'substantive outcomes' reached in Biden, Modi talks

TOKYO: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden reached “substantive outcomes” on Tuesday in talks to strengthen their trade, technology and defence ties.

The leaders are in Tokyo for a meeting of the Quad group of countries – United States, India, Japan and Australia. Of the four, only India has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite pressure from the United States for it to do so.

“Discussed ways to strengthen cooperation in trade, investment, technology, defence, P2P ties between the two countries,” Indian foreign ministry spokesperson, Arindam Bagchi, said on Twitter, referring to people-to-people ties. “Concluded with substantive outcomes adding depth and momentum to the bilateral partnership.”

In a tweet, Modi said he productive meeting with US President Joe Biden on wide-ranging and covered multiple aspects of India-USA ties including trade, investment, defence as well as people-to-people linkages.

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Biden said he had discussed the effects of the Ukraine war with Modi. The Indian leader has not publicly referred to the war on his Tokyo visit.

Russia has been India’s biggest arms supplier for decades and India is wary of seeing Russia pushed even closer to China, with which India has serious border disagreements.

The United States has offered to sell more defence equipment and oil to India to pry it away from Russia. India has also joined a US-led trade partnership, that Biden launched this week, called the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity.

Had a productive meeting with @POTUS @JoeBiden. Today’s discussions were wide-ranging and covered multiple aspects of India-USA ties including trade, investment, defence as well as people-to-people linkages. pic.twitter.com/kUcylf6xXp

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 24, 2022