New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in New Delhi on Monday morning after his successfully three-nation tour of Belgium, United States and Saudi Arabia.
Prime Minister Modi was received by Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, including Satish Upadhyay and Vijender Gupta, on his arrival at the Palam Technical Airport here.
Prior to his departure from Riyadh, Prime Minister Modi tweeted, “Thank you Saudi Arabia. Joined several programmes during my visit, which will deepen economic & people-to-people ties between our nations.”
In Riyadh, the Prime Minister held delegation-level talks with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in a move to cement new momentum in bilateral ties between both sides and expand cooperation in diverse areas including trade, investment and counter-terrorism.
Prime Minister Modi expressed his sincere gratitude to the King for the warm welcome and gracious hospitality.
King Al Saud also accepted the Prime Minister’s invitation to pay an official visit to India at a mutually convenient time.
In a joint statement issued after the talks, the two leaders agreed upon the need to further strengthen these ties, particularly through diversifying non-oil trade.
Highlighting the key initiatives taken by the Indian Government to improve the ease of doing business and efforts to relax the Foreign Direct Investment norms, Prime Minister Modi invited the Saudi companies to invest in the infrastructure sector in India and to participate in projects like Smart Cities as well as the Digital India and Start up India programmes.
India and Saudi Arabia also agreed to further strengthen cooperation in combating terrorism, both at the bilateral level and within the multilateral system of the UN.
Affirming that the menace of extremism and terrorism threatens all nations and societies, the two leaders rejected totally any attempt to link this universal phenomenon to any particular race, religion or culture.
Earlier during his visit to the United States for the Nuclear Security Summit, Prime Minister Modi made key announcements including that India will continue to accord a high national priority to nuclear security through strong institutional framework, independent regulatory agency and trained and specialized manpower.
He held bilateral talks of mutual interest with the leaders of Canada, United Kingdom, Argentina and Japan.
During his stay in Brussels, Prime Minister Modi participated in the European Union-India Summit and paid tribute to the victims of the deadly terror attacks at the Maelbeek metro station where a suicide bomber blew himself on March 22. (ANI)