The United States supports India as a defence industry leader in the Indo-Pacific and a net provider of security in the region, said US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday.
Addressing a press conference after India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue, he said that the US has identified a new opportunity (India) to extend the operational reach of our military to coordinate more closely together across the expanse of the Indo-Pacific.
"We all understand the challenges that we are facing. The People's Republic of China is seeking to refashion the region in the international system more broadly. In ways that serve its interest," said.
"So we have identified a new opportunity to extend the operational reach of our military to coordinate more closely together across the expanse of the Indo-Pacific. We walked on the Indian Navy's decision to join the combined maritime forces in Moraine Bahrain and we have also committed to more high-end exercises together," Austin said.
"We made a commitment today to reinforce our ties with like-minded countries including Japan Australia and our European allies and partners," he said.
Speaking further, Austin said that it has been really two decades since we signed our first bilateral defence framework, our partnership has grown immensely since then.
"We made important commitments today that we will drive technological innovation and cooperation in emerging different domains including space and cyberspace. We are committed to launch in new defence space exchange later this year between our space command and Indian defence space agency," the US Defence Secretary said.
"We are also deeping our ties in cyberspace including through training and exercises later this year. and we are expanding our information sharing partnerships across all who are fighting domains," he added.
While Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that an agreement on Defence Space and Defence Artificial Intelligence dialogues has been reached.
"Many other initiatives and agreements which are in the discussion phase have been agreed to be expanded for progress in the scope and depth of our military engagements," he said.
He further informed that India and the US also discussed further cooperation in the defence cyber and special forces field; including LEMOA (Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement). "Both the parties are confident in moving forward toward the close agreement on special op forces."
US-India 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and External Affairs Minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh held today at Washington.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, today held a virtual meeting with United States President Joe Biden wherein both the leaders had an extensive exchange of views on several regional and global issues, such as the Ukraine situation, the Indo-Pacific region.
( With inputs from ANI )
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