Washington, Nov 24 (ANI): Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh received a red carpet welcome at the White House in Washington DC on Tuesday.

The meeting between Dr. Singh and President Barack Obama is considered critical to showing Washington’s commitment to New Delhi in a region where its rivals, China and Pakistan, are U.S. priorities.

Dr. Singh has been honored with the first state visit of the 10-month-old U.S. administration.

Obama said he hoped that as leading economies both India and the US could strengthen the global economic recovery.

“As leading economies the United States and Indian can strengthen the global economic recovery, promote trade that create jobs for both our people and pursue growth that is balanced and sustained.

“As nuclear powers we can be co-partners in preventing the spread of the worlds’ most deadly weapons, securing lose nuclear material from terrorist and pursuing our shared vision of world without nuclear weapons,” said the U.S. President.

“This is the India that America welcomes today, a leader in Asia and around the world,” Obama added.

Prime Minister Singh laid stress on strengthening India-US bilateral relations.

“Our relations have been transformed and today they encompass cooperation in all areas of human activities. Mr President I come today to build upon the successes and to strengthen our multi-faceted relationship. We seek to broaden and deepen our strategic partnership and to work with the United States to meet the challenges of a fast changing world in this 21st century,” he said.

Dr. Singh said India should cooperate in making a nuclear weapon free world.

“We should cooperate in addressing global challenges of combating terrorism, making our environment cleaner and making a world free of nuclear weapons,” he said.

The U.S.-India summit is expected to have focussed heavily on efforts to enhance economic links that have blossomed since India’s market reforms in the early 1990s. Two-way trade grew to nearly 50 billion dollars last year from just 5 billion dollars in 1990, turning the United States into India’s largest trading partner.

The two leaders are also expected to try to narrow their differences over climate change and seek to speed up completion of a 2005 civilian nuclear deal that has yet to be implemented. (ANI)