US President Joe Biden has reiterated America's support for India's permanent membership on a reformed United Nations Security Council and its entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group during his first in-person bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House.
President Biden, in his talks with Prime Minister Modi, applauded India's "strong leadership" during its UN Security Council Presidency in August 2021, according to the US-India Joint Leaders' Statement issued after their meeting in the White House on Friday last.
Biden's support provides a big boost to New Delhi's push for the reform of the powerful UN organ as India has been at the forefront of efforts at the United Nations to push for an urgent long-pending reform of the Security Council, emphasising that it rightly deserves a place at the UN high table as a permanent member.
India in June asserted that the Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) on UN Security Council reforms can no longer be used as a smokescreen, as the General Assembly decided to roll over the IGN work to the next UN General Assembly session and agreed to include an amendment proposed by the G4 nations of Brazil, Germany, India and Japan.
During his meeting with Prime Minister Modi, President Biden also reaffirmed US support for India's entry to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the joint statement said. The Nuclear Suppliers Group or NSG is a 48-member grouping which regulates global nuclear commerce.
Ever since India applied for the membership of the NSG in May 2016, China has been insisting that only those countries which have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) should be allowed to enter the organisation. India and Pakistan are not signatories of the NPT. After India's application, Pakistan too has applied for the NSG membership in 2016.
Talked about Covid, climate change
Both the leaders pledged to launch a new chapter in the already deep ties between the US and India, promising to take them to greater heights in the face of some of the toughest challenges facing them. They also resorted to familiar warm and fuzzy formulations to talk up bilateral ties, avoiding any mention of third countries while identifying challenges such as the pandemic, climate change and ensuring stability in the Indo-Pacific region.
In a lighter moment, the US President repeated a story about having ancestral ties in India, where he had heard there were five Bidens in Mumbai, before remarking, “all kidding aside relations between India and the US... is destined to be stronger and closer. Today, we are launching a new chapter and taking on some of the toughest challenge we face in our time starting with the pandemic”.
PM Modi said he had indeed followed up the story of Biden’s personal ties with India - arising from an ancestor named George Biden who worked for the East India Company - and he had brought with him some documents for the US President to peruse.
