India a key ally, we have a wide, broad, deep relationship: US

Washington: The US administration on Monday unequivocally called India as its global strategic partner.

The statement by the Biden administration comes as Secretary of State Tony Blinken left for New Delhi to attend a host of key conferences including the G-20 foreign ministers' meeting.

Blinken will also attend a Quad ministerial meeting and hold a bilateral talk with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

"India is a global strategic partner of ours. We have a wide, broad, deep relationship with India. There will be a lot on the agenda in the bilateral relationship and in the multilateral engagements he takes part in on the margins of the G20," Ned Price, State Department Spokesperson, told reporters at his daily news conference.

"We share a vision with India of a free and open Indo-Pacific, and India is a key partner of ours bilaterally, in the context of the Quad as well, other international groupings, even as we've attempted to stitch together some of the partnerships in which India has been a key player,” he said.

"We've spoken quite a bit recently of I2U2, a new partnership that involves India, it involves the UAE, it involves the United States as well. So, there are a number of elements on the agenda, and you'll have an opportunity to hear from the Secretary as he travels there," Price said.

After his visit to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Blinken is scheduled to arrive in New Delhi for a three-day India trip. During his bilateral meetings, both Russia and China are expected to figure in talks.

"You've heard very firmly from Prime Minister Modi the belief on the part of the Indian government that this is not an era of war. There are countries around the world, notably Russia, that are challenging the rules-based order, the principles of the UN Charter, the principles of international law, the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We'll continue to discuss these issues with our Indian partners. I have no doubt that they'll be on the agenda for and around the G20,” Price said.

India and the United States, Price said, share a number of important interests, and a number of important values.

"But principally we share a vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific region. There are countries in the region, namely the PRC (People's Republic of China), that have posed a consistent and in some ways even a systemic challenge to the vision that we share with India of a free and open Indo-Pacific. Without going into specifics, those issues will certainly be on the agenda at the G20 but also in the bilateral context," he said.

PTI with superficial editing