Reuters, Washington :US President Barack Obama and new Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed on Monday to expand and deepen their countries’ strategic partnership and make it a model for the rest of the world.In a joint “vision statement” issued after their first meeting at a White House dinner, the two leaders said they would work together “not just for the benefit of both our nations, but for the benefit of the world.”They said their countries would cooperate on security and to fight terrorism and would back a “rules based” global order in which India assumes greater multilateral responsibility, including a reformed UN Security Council. They also vowed to work together against the threat posed by climate change and to cooperate to address the consequences of unchecked pollution.”We have a vision that the United States and India will have a transformative relationship as trusted partners in the 21st century. Our partnership will be a model for the rest of the world,” they said in their statement said.The two leaders also said their countries would work to ensure that economic growth brought better livelihoods for all people and stressed the importance of open markets and fair and transparent practices to allow trade to flourish.Washington has been keen to expand business and security ties with India, which it sees as a key counterbalance to an increasingly assertive China in Asia. Obama has backed New Delhi’s bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.However, the relationship has failed to live up to his declaration in 2010 that it would become “one of the defining partnerships of the 21st Century.”Modi, who came to power in May, has received a warm welcome in the United States, even though he was denied a visa in 2005 over rioting in his home state three years earlier that killed more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims. Modi denies any wrongdoing and has been exonerated by an Indian Supreme Court investigation.
