Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday (local time) said that India has a critical role to play in the Indian Ocean Region and wider Indo-Pacific following Act East and Neighbourhood First policies, adding a major defence partnership is one of the most important pillars of India-US strategic relations.

Speaking at the fourth India-US 2+2 ministerial dialogue here, he highlighted that India played a pre-eminent role in the Indo-Pacific region. “Major defence partnership is one of the most important pillars of India-US strategic relations. India has critical roles to play in Indian Ocean Region, wider Indo-Pacific following Act East and Neighbourhood First policies,” he said.

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“India played a pre-eminent role in the region, from Tsunami in 2004 and during COVID-19. We have signed eight different defence-related agreements between our two countries in the last few years, including Space Situational Awareness Agreement for an unclassified domain which is being signed today,” the Defence Minister said.

He also said that India-US military engagements increased with higher capability in communication, closer info sharing and enhanced mutual logistics support despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s a reflection of the growing depth and scale of our defence partnership,” Rajnath Singh noted.

“In a decade, our defence supplies from the US rose from negligible to a cumulative amount of over USD 20 Billion. We look forward to US companies investing in India and supporting the Make in India program,” he added.

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 was held today in 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.

According to PMO’s release, the two leaders had an “extensive exchange of views on several regional and global issues, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, global economic recovery, climate action, recent developments in South Asia and the Indo-Pacific region, and the situation in Ukraine.”

They also took stock of the significant progress made in bilateral relations in recent years.

Both leaders agreed that further strengthening of the India-US Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership would be of tremendous benefit to the two countries, and would also contribute to global peace, prosperity and stability, the statement added.