New Delhi: India and the US on Friday discussed ways to deepen their global strategic partnership through increased defence industrial collaboration, enhanced engagement in the Indo-Pacific and cooperation in key areas such as critical minerals and high-technology. The 2+2 ministerial talks were led by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin from the US side, and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh from the Indian side.
Jaishankar said in his televised opening remarks that the dialogue was an opportunity to advance the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden to build a forward looking partnership and construct a shared global agenda. He said that the two sides were exploring cooperation in new domains such as critical technologies, collaboration in civil outer space and in areas of critical minerals.
Blinken said that the two sides were promoting a free and open, prosperous, secure and resilient Indo-Pacific, including by strengthening the US-India partnership through the Quad. He said that the focus was to bolster the partnership in international peace, security and specifically working to promote rules-based order, uphold principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence.
Singh said that the India-US bilateral relationship had seen a growing interest in strategic convergence and enhanced defence cooperation. He said that defence cooperation remained one of the most important pillars of the bilateral relationship. He said that the two sides looked forward to closely working with each other across domains of capability building.
Austin said that in the face of urgent global challenges, it was more important than ever that the world’s two largest democracies exchanged views, found common goals and “delivered for our people”. He said that the increasingly strong ties gave them all hope for the future of the partnership and their common efforts towards a more secure world.
