India-US partnership critical for free, open and rules-bound Indo-Pacific region, says Rajnath Singh

New Delhi: Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh held talks with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin in New Delhi on Monday. The meeting between the two leaders revolved around enhancing defence cooperation in several areas including convergence of strategic interests and enhanced security cooperation.

Mr Singh emphasised that the India-US partnership is critical for ensuring a free, open and rules-bound Indo-Pacific region. He said India is looking forward to closely working with the US across the domains for capacity building and further consolidating their strategic partnership.

The two Ministers also explored ways of building resilient supply chains. Both sides will identify opportunities for the co-development of new technologies and the co-production of existing and new systems and facilitate increased collaboration between the defence start-up



ecosystems of the two countries. Towards these objectives, they concluded a roadmap for US-India Defence Industrial Cooperation which shall guide the policy direction for the next few years.

Both sides reviewed the robust and multifaceted bilateral defence cooperation activities and agreed to maintain the momentum of engagement. They welcomed the inaugural dialogues held recently focusing on Defence Artificial Intelligence and Defence Space. They also discussed the regional security issues given their shared interest in maintaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. 

Senior officials from the Ministry of Defence including Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan, Defence Secretary Giridhar Aramane and Secretary and Chairman DRDO Dr Samir V Kamat, participated in the meeting.