US, India eye to elevate ties
The United States would like to elevate and strengthen security ties with India, especially in information sharing and logistics, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told his Indian counterpart yesterday.
Austin is making the first visit by a top member of US President Joe Biden's administration to India as part of efforts to forge an alliance of countries seeking to push back against China's assertiveness in the region.
Austin, after meeting Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, called India a "central pillar of our approach to the region", hailing the two nations' "shared values and converging strategic interests".
"We discussed opportunities to elevate the US-India major defence partnership, which is a priority of the Biden-Harris administration. And we'll do that through regional security cooperation and military to military interactions and defence trade."
Singh said their meeting focused on "expanding military-to-military engagement across services, information-sharing, cooperation in emerging sectors of defence, and mutual logistics support".
He also urged US industry to invest in India's defence sector, citing what he called liberalised foreign direct investment policies.
Austin met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his arrival in New Delhi on Friday.
Austin was due to meet Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar later yesterday. He leaves today.
He said he raised human rights in India in his talks -- something which the Biden administration says is an important part of both its foreign and defence policy -- but not with Modi.
In 2016, the United States designated India a "Major Defense Partner", and they have since signed a string of deals easing the transfer of advanced weaponry and deepening military cooperation. But Russia is India's biggest arms supplier and New Delhi agreed in 2018 a $5.4 billion purchase of Moscow's S-400 missile defence system, even though this could lead to US sanctions -- as happened with Turkey.
"There's been no delivery of an S-400 system. And so ... the issue of sanctions is not one that's been discussed," Austin told reporters.
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