‘Modi’s visit gave opportunity to assess Indo-US partnership’

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US provided an “important opportunity” to assess how the Indo-US partnership can help address global challenges and unleash opportunity in the economic and trade space, a top Obama administration official said.

“There was a tremendous amount of support and goodwill and his words resonated in many many different audiences around town,” Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal told PTI on the sidelines of an event here yesterday.

Following Modi’s visit to Washington from June 6-8, Biswal had described the vision laid out by the Indian leader during his address to the US Congress as the ‘Modi Doctrine’

Biswal, in the city to speak at the launch of the Sri Lanka Policy Forum, said Modi doctrine was “a way of framing what I thought was an important vision” that the Prime Minister put forward in his speech to the US Congress.

“It’s a recognition that both President (Barack) Obama and Prime Minister Modi said that we are each other’s best partners in an important defining relationship, not only because of what we can do for our own peoples through our partnership but because of the way we can really advance global concerns, address challenges and create betterment around the world.”

She said Modi’s visit was an “important opportunity” to talk about that kind of partnership and to bedst look at the “challenges that we see”, including the challenges across the Indo-Pacific, climate change and “how we can move together to address them as well as unleash opportunity on the economic and trade space and in many other endeavors between our two countries.”

Earlier speaking during the session hosted by The Program on Peace-building and Human Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights and the Association of War Affected Women, Biswal said Sri Lanka is making progress but a lot more still needs to be done.