New Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on March 20 said that he had “comprehensive and fruitful discussions” with US Defense Secretary Lloyd J Austin and that the two sides are “keen to work together to realise the full potential of the India-US Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership.”
In a statement after the talks, Singh said that it was a great honour and pleasure to receive Austin in his first official visit abroad and to India.
“I spoke with Secretary Austin immediately after he assumed charge. We had an excellent conversation during which I invited him to visit India at his earliest convenience. His visit to India despite the COVID-19 global pandemic, shows the abiding commitment of the United States to our bilateral relationship,” the Defence Minister said.
Elaborating on the talks, Singh said “our discussions today focussed on our wide ranging defence cooperation and expanding military-to-military engagement across services, information sharing, cooperation in emerging sectors of defence and mutual logistics support.
We reviewed the wide gamut of bilateral and multilateral exercises and agreed to pursue enhanced cooperation with the US Indo-Pacific Command, Central Command and Africa Command. Acknowledging that we have in place the foundational agreements, LEMOA, COMCASA and BECA, we discussed steps to be taken to realise their full potential for mutual benefit,” Singh added.
The Defence Minister conveyed India’s appreciation to Secretary Austin for participation of US in Aero India 2021 along with a business delegation.
Singh invited US industry to take advantage of India’s liberalised foreign direct investment (FDI) policies in the defence sector and the two sides agreed that there are opportunities for collaboration in defence industry.
“The recent Leaders’ Summit of India, US, Japan and Australia under the Quad framework emphasised our resolve to maintain a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region. We discussed the need for enhanced capacity building to address some of the non-traditional challenges such as oil spills and environment disasters, drug trafficking, Illegal, Unreported, Unregulated (IUU) fishing,” the Defence Minister said.
He said India is committed to further consolidate its robust defence partnership with the United States and the Defence Minister looked forward to working with Secretary Austin closely to make the India-US relationship one of the defining partnerships of 21st century.
