India committed to consolidate robust defence partnership with US: Rajnath Singh

NEW DELHI: India’s defence minister Rajnath Singh today said that India is committed to further consolidate the robust defence partnership of India with the United States.

 

After a "comprehensive and fruitful discussion" with secretary Austin and his delegation on various matter he said, “I look forward to working with you closely to make the India-US relationship one of the defining partnerships of 21st century.”

 

Minister Singh said, “We are keen to work together to realise the full potential of the India-US Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership.”

 

“Today's conversations focused on our broad defence cooperation, including extending military-to-military engagement across services, information sharing, cooperation in emerging defence industries, and mutual logistics support,” he added.

 

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They also discussed a wide range of bilateral and multilateral exercises and pledged to work more closely with the US Indo-Pacific Command, Central Command, and Africa Command in the future.

 

The need for more capacity building to deal with non-traditional problems like oil spills and environmental disasters, drug trafficking, and illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, among other things were also discussed.

 

Acknowledging that the basic agreements, Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA), and Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA), that are in place, they discussed the steps that need to be taken to realise their full potential for mutual benefit.

 

The minister also expressed his gratitude to secretary Austin for the United States' participation in Aero India 2021 with a business delegation.

 

Furthermore, he invited US industry to take advantage of India’s liberalized foreign direct investment (FDI) policies in the defence sector.