US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin reached India on Thursday and was accorded with the tri-service Guard of Honour on the Palam Airport in New Delhi, forward of the India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue scheduled on Friday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will attain India tomorrow to co-chair the dialogue alongside Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
With his arrival, Austin commenced his two-day journey to India. The US Secretaries will co-chair the dialogue, which will probably be adopted up by a bilateral assembly between Austin and Rajnath Singh, in line with the Ministry of Defence.
Following his go to to India, he can even journey to South Korea and Indonesia, marking his ninth go to to the Indo-Pacific area. Austin’s final go to to India was in June 2023 when he met the Indian Defence Minister. He is anticipated to debate a quantity of strategic, defence and know-how points through the 2+2 dialogue and the bilateral assembly together with his Indian counterpart.
India-US 2+2 Dialogue
The 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue is a diplomatic summit held yearly since 2018, with the Minister of External Affairs and the Defence Minister representing India and the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defence representing the United States.
This yr, India and the US will take inventory of modern regional points and trade views about shared priorities for augmenting cooperation in multilateral platforms, and thru frameworks such because the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.
The Indian and US representatives will talk about alternatives to progress the futuristic roadmap for the India-US partnership as envisioned by PM Modi and US President Joe Biden, of their discussions in June and September this yr.
The first India-US 2+2 dialogue was held in 2018 underneath the administration of former US President Donald Trump. This yr, the US facet can also be anticipated to push for army {hardware} cooperation whereas India is more likely to ask for the sharing of high-end know-how for growing indigenous weapon programs through the ministerial, sources advised information company ANI.
(with ANI inputs)
