US President Barack Obama urged India to promote religious tolerance and do more to combat global warming Tuesday as he wrapped up a visit aimed at forging a new friendship between the world’s largest democracies.

Speaking to an audience of mainly young people, Obama said the United States could be India’s “best partner” but put pressure on his hosts over a range of political and social issues, including women’s rights.

The US president also said their countries could forge “one of the defining partnerships of this century,” even as he warned the war against climate change would not “stand a chance” without India.

The speech was the finale of a packed visit which has seen a dramatic upturn in an often troubled relationship, including the signing of a new “friendship” pact between Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India’s right-wing premier was a pariah in Washington less than a year ago, but has since developed a close bond with Obama, with their two countries keen to counter-balance the rise of China.

“India and the United States are not just natural partners — I believe that America can be India’s best partner,” said Obama after receiving a rapturous welcome from a group of around 1,500 people.

Obama, however, weighed in on two sensitive issues in India before departing for Saudi Arabia, saying women should not only have equal rights but be safe to “walk the street”.

“Every woman should be able to go about her day, to walk the street, or ride the bus, and be safe and be treated with the respect and dignity that she deserves,” he said.

India was rocked by the fatal gang-rape of a student in Delhi in 2012 that unleashed seething anger about high levels of sexual violence and a round of soul-searching about its treatment of women.

Obama also urged respect

for religion in officially secular India, where the election of Hindu nationalist Modi has given rise to fears among the country’s large Muslim minority.

“Every person has the right to practice their faith how they choose, or to practice no faith at all, and to do so free of persecution and fear of discrimination,” he said.

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama flew in to Saudi Arabia Tuesday, leading a heavyweight delegation to offer condolences on King Abdullah’s death and shore up ties that have suffered in recent years.

The United States established full diplomatic relations with the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom in 1940 and the unlikely allies remain bound by shared interests in regional stability and oil.

Air Force One touched down at King Khalid International Airport in the capital Riyadh, arriving from India where Obama cut short a state visit to travel to Saudi.

Saudi television showed new King Salman welcoming Obama and his wife Michelle at the bottom of a red-carpeted ramp before a military band played the US and Saudi national anthems.

In contrast to Saudi women, required to dress head-to-toe in black, Michelle Obama wore dark slacks and a blue top with her hair uncovered.

Salman’s heir Crown Prince Moqren and Mohammed bin Nayef, the powerful interior minister who is second in line to the throne, were among those who greeted the American delegation. Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi was also among the delegation.

The US president then boarded a black limousine taking him to talks with Salman at a palace in the city centre. The four-hour stopover was also to include a dinner before the US delegation continues on to Germany.

Salman, 79, acceded to the throne after Abdullah died on Friday aged about 90. Authorities deployed armoured vehicles, police cars and radar all along the route into the city from the airport to secure Obama’s visit, an AFP reporter observed.

A row of stars and stripes flags flew beside Saudi Arabia’s green standards. Despite the longstanding partnership, analysts say Riyadh has grown dissatisfied with what it sees as a lack of US engagement with regional crises as Washington looks to Asia.

Anwar Eshki, chairman of the Jeddah-based Centre for Strategic and Legal Studies, said “divergences persist”.

The differences include the battle against the Islamic State group extremists in Iraq and Syria, the nearly four-year-old rebellion against the Damascus regime and the post-Arab Spring chaos in Libya and Yemen.

Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Centre, said the US-Saudi relationship “is not what it was”.