PM leaves for US, Brazil, Obama to meet on Sunday

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Arun Kumar | 10 Apr, 2010
Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh today left for a week-long visit to the US and Brazil to meet President Barack Obama on Sunday and Chinese President Hu Jintao and to attend a summit on nuclear security.

The special aircraft carrying the prime minister and his delegation took off from the Palam air force station at 9.40 a.m.

In his departure statement released Friday evening, Singh said India was a "major stakeholder" in addressing issues related to nuclear security. He hoped that the summit will discuss issues related to nuclear terrorism and proliferation, which should be dealt with "firmly".

Dr. Singh will meet US President Barack Obama in Washington on Sunday ahead of the Nuclear Security Summit to discuss the path forward on their landmark civil nuclear deal and other bilateral and regional issues.

The Sunday afternoon meeting with Manmohan Singh, who has advanced his trip by a day for the important "bilateral engagement", at the Blair House, the presidential guest house across the street from White House, will be first of a series of meetings that Obama will have with world leaders from 47 nations.

"Obviously the President developed a close working relationship with Prime Minister Singh, who visited the United States for a State Dinner and working visit last year," Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, told reporters Friday.

"And we expect, again, to have a dialogue with the Indians, a continuing dialogue on a range of issues that we're working with them together on."

In the next leg in Brasilia, Singh will participate in the Brazil-Russia-India-China (BRIC) summit and the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) summit.

At both places, he will also hold bilateral meetings with Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Brazilian President Lula da Silva, President Hu and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.