India, US keen to have 'excellent outcome' of Barack Obama's visit

NEW DELHI: Terming the upcoming visit of US President Barack Obama as a "landmark" trip, India today said both countries were working hard to have "excellent outcome" from it.

Significantly, US Secretary of State John Kerry, in Gandhinagar, said that the two sides will try to make progress on key issues like defence and civil nuclear agreement.

"We are looking forward to the visit with great enthusiasm. Yesterday, when Secretary of State Kerry was in Gandhinagar, he had a meeting with the Prime Minister.

"There was a discussion on various elements including the elements of the agenda of the visit... Both India and the US look at this as landmark visit. We both are keen to have excellent outcome of the visit. We are working hard on it," Official Spokesperson in the External Affairs Ministry Syed Akbaruddin said.

Obama will be in India as chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations. He will also hold talks with top Indian leadership including Modi on various key bilateral issues.

Before his departure from Gandhinagar, where he had gone to participate in 'Vibrant Gujarat' Summit, Kerry told reporters, "We will try to make progress on issues like defence agreements, civil nuclear agreement as well as economic progress" while giving an outline of the proposed Obama-Modi discussions.

After the civil nuclear deal between the two countries in 2008, cooperation in the sector has been stalled over the tough provisions in the Civil Nuclear Liability Act here, following which Modi and Obama, during their bilateral meeting in Washington in September, decided to set up a high-level Contact Group on civil nuclear cooperation.

The Group had already held two rounds of detailed discussions on a range of implementation issues, including administrative, liability, technical and licencing to facilitate the establishment of US-designed nuclear power plants in India. The two sides are keen to have a "concrete" deliverable during Obama's visit.

Asked if Obama will visit cities outside Delhi, the spokesperson did not give a direct answer by saying, they were still working on the logistics.