Top US Defence and State Department officials co-chaired the
sixth 2+2 Intersessional Dialogue with their Indian counterparts in
New Delhi and advanced an ambitious set of initiatives across the
breadth of the bilateral partnership, the Pentagon said on
Thursday.
The US Defence Department said they reviewed progress toward
operationalizing major bilateral initiatives on
information-sharing, defence industrial cooperation, and joint
service engagements.
They committed to launching an inaugural Emerging Defence
Capabilities Dialogue later this fall, as the two sides expand
cooperation in new domains such as space, cyber, artificial
intelligence, and other defence technology areas.
“The 2+2 Intersessional Dialogue advanced an ambitious set of
initiatives across the breadth of the US-India partnership,
including defence and security, science and technology, climate,
public health, trade, and people-to-people ties,” US Department of
Defence spokesperson John Supple said in a statement.
On the defence side, Assistant Secretary of Defence for
Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner and his counterparts
discussed a range of leading regional security issues, including
recent developments in East Asia.
“The officials also reviewed progress toward operationalizing
major bilateral initiatives on information-sharing, defence
industrial cooperation, and joint service engagements to support
combined, multi-domain operations,” they said.
They committed to launching an inaugural Emerging Defence
Capabilities Dialogue later this fall, as the two sides expand
cooperation in new domains such as space, cyber, artificial
intelligence, and other defence technology areas.
In a separate Maritime Security Dialogue on September 8, the US
and Indian officials discussed ways to expand US-India
collaboration both bilaterally and within multilateral networks,
including with Australia, Japan, and European partners, Supple
said.
They identified new opportunities to coordinate
capacity-building activities in South and Southeast Asia, deepen
logistics cooperation, and drive forward high-end Navy-to-Navy
cooperation to address challenges, including in the undersea
domain.
Assistant Secretary Ratner reaffirmed the Department’s
commitment to continue positioning the US-India partnership at the
centre of its approach to the region as the United States and India
work together to advance our shared vision for a free and open
Indo-Pacific.
The India-US 2+2 Intersessional meeting was held in New Delhi on
Wednesday where the senior officials vowed to further strengthen
the strategic partnership between both nations.
The officials also reviewed the outcomes of the 2+2 Ministerial
Dialogue which was held in April 2022. The India-US 2+2
Inter-sessional meeting was led by senior officials from the
Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Defence and the US
Departments of State and Defence.
“India-US 2+2 Inter-sessional meeting held today in New Delhi.
Led by senior officials from MEA & MoD and US Departments of State
& Defence. Reviewed outcomes of the 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue of
April 2022, with the aim of further strengthening the strategic
partnership,” MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi tweeted.
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