US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday said that President Joe Biden values strong alliances and partnerships with India, adding that the 2+2 ministerial dialogue held earlier in the day, was about taking US-India ties and making it even stronger.

“Biden truly values strong alliances and partnerships like the one that we have with India. That’s what today is all about. It’s about taking our own relationship and making it even stronger,” he said while addressing a press conference after India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue.

“We are working closely with India on a range of priorities to support India’s security and its role is a net security provider in areas like information sharing, deeper cooperation in space and cyberspace,” the Defence Secretary said further.

US-India 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was held today in Washington.
Speaking further in the press conference, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that both Delhi and Washington share a strategic relationship and invited the foreign investors to invest in India to boost the Make in India initiative by the Indian Government.

“There is a strategic relationship between the two countries and you have inspired that India would focus on core development on production and all the investors should come to India. They are welcome because they can develop the Make in India because we want to make everything in India,” Singh said.

Rajnath Singh said that increasing cooperation between India and the US will be important to accessing global economies and maintaining peace and security.

“Today’s defence bilateral and 2+2 meeting between India and the US is very important to strengthen the strategic defence engagement. This meeting will make us more capable to work in areas of mutual interest. Our increasing cooperation will be important to accessing global economies and maintaining peace and security,” the Defence Minister said.

He underlined that the world’s two biggest democracies–India and the US– share the same views on almost all global issues including terrorism and maritime security.

“Both our nations are common and complementary; we have shared goals to achieve. It’s great that the world’s two biggest democracies share the same views on almost all world issues… During the meeting, we discussed our assessments of the Indian Ocean region and its neighbours.”

The Defence Minister thanked the Secretaries and delegation for great interaction and appreciated their commitment to the bilateral relations between the two countries.

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.