By Nandita Bose
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and welcomed the South Asian nation’s decision to resume exports of the COVID-19 vaccine and said both countries must work together to protect democracies around the world.
India, the world’s biggest maker of COVID vaccines, announced this week that it would resume vaccine exports later this year. India stopped exports in April to focus on inoculating its own population as infections exploded.
“When India experienced the surge of COVID in the country, the United States was very proud to support India in its need and responsibility to vaccinate its people, and I welcome India’s announcement that it will soon be able to resume vaccine exports,” Harris said.
Harris and Modi are expected to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic, greater cooperation in technology, space and other sectors, and supply chain issues, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
Modi’s three-day Washington trip will be capped by a meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House on Friday.
Biden and Modi will also hold a “Quad” summit with the leaders of Australia and Japan, aiming to boost cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region amid China’s growing dominance in the area.
Modi will on Thursday also meet the chief executives of Adobe, First Solar and General Atomics, the sources said.
Modi, former chief minister of Gujarat before his 2014 national election win, was banned https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-modi-obama-call/obama-invites-modi-to-visit-u-s-despite-past-visa-ban-idINKBN0DW1NY20140516 from traveling to the United States for a nearly a decade, following the massacre of 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, in the state in 2002.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose, Andrea Shalal and Jarrett Renshaw in Washington; Editing by Heather Timmons and Alistair Bell)
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