The US has hailed India for the promising start of the G20, stating that it is "deeply grateful" to India for how it led the Summit on Thursday.
US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a press briefing on Thursday that US's partnership with India is one of the most "consequential relationships."
"You heard from the Secretary, we are deeply grateful to our Indian partners for the way they have led their G20 today ..there is a lot more work to be done over the course of this year. But, India is off to a very promising start with its stewardship of the G20. Our partnership and this was a subject of the discussion between Secretary Antony Blinken and his counterpart Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar earlier today," Ned Price added.
With regard to the meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Price said the duo spoke about "creating an agenda that allows us to tackle key issues that are so important in our global strategic partner with India."
"The G20 is an important instrument for us, its an important instrument for India. We have seen how the G20 can bring together countries for collective action we think what we have seen in India over the past couple of days was no exception," Price said.
Price said the US will continue to work with India to bring an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine. He said that India has the ability to speak with moral clarity. "India has the ability we have seen from Prime Minister Modi to speak with tremendous moral clarity. When Prime Minister Modi said last year "this is not an era of war", the world listened as they should because when Prime Minister Modi and his country said something to that effect, its meaningful to the United States, it's meaningful to Russia, it is meaningful to countries near and far."
He stressed about working with India to bring an end to the war. "We hope that we can work closely with India to bring about an end to this war, an end to this Russian aggression to an end that is at its core just endurable and very much in line with the principles in the UN charter." Price said that India has longstanding and historical ties with Russia and is connected to Russia in many ways that US is not."
