NEW DELHI/BERLIN, Feb 25 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Saturday said he wanted to deepen his nation's relationship with India ahead of his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.
"India and Germany have very good relations and want to deepen them. That will be the topic of our talks and, importantly, peace in the world," Scholz said on Twitter.
Scholz, meeting Modi for the fourth time, landed in India a day after the first anniversary of Ukraine war, highlighting Delhi's growing importance to Western powers seeking backing for their opposition to Russia's invasion.
Scholz is also set to push hard for a $5.2 billion deal to sell India six conventional submarines, though this latest attempt by a Western military manufacturing power to wean New Delhi away from its dependence on Russia for military hardware is not expected to yield an immediate result.
Germany's pivot to India is particularly stark, given that close economic ties to China, the main buyer of German machine tools, and Russia, its key energy supplier, have played in German prosperity over the past 15 years.