Washington<\/p>\n
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Friday concluded her five-day visit to the United States, which officials said was aimed at \u201caccelerating the momentum\u201d of India-US defence ties from enhancing India\u2019s naval capabilities in the Indian Ocean region, to increasing the footprint of American companies in Make in India programme, and substantially increasing bilateral defence trade.<\/p>\n
While no announcements were made with regard to shifting of F-16 production base to India or deals in armed drones, officials privy to the high-level talks said \u201cUS is leaning way forward\u201d in meeting India\u2019s needs and aspirations in the defence sector and is taking steps that would help it achieve its strategic goals.<\/p>\n
There is a \u201cmutual desire to move positively and quickly\u201d in defence relationship, Sitharaman told media persons at the Pentagon on Monday, which was also her only media interaction during this US visit.<\/p>\n
In the last one month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi first met Vice-President Mike Pence and then was in a tri-lateral meeting involving US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinjo Abe, wherein Indo-Pacific and regional peace was a discussed. Early this summer Mattis met Modi.<\/p>\n
Sitharaman, the first woman Defence Minister of India, was accorded a red-carpet welcome during her maiden visit to the US in this capacity wherein she was given a rare look-in and briefing into the various aspects of US armed forces, defence industry and the ecosystem that the United States has developed over the last few decades involving the military, strategic thinking community, research and industrial base.<\/p>\n
In San Francisco \u2013 the hub of innovation and starts ups Sitharaman and her delegation was given an insight into the American defence research set up and what are the best defence practices that can be adopted by India.<\/p>\n
Sitharaman capped off her trip with a visit to Hawaii the headquarters of the what early this year was rechristened as US Indo-Pacific Command.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur two democratic nations are committed to upholding a rules-based international order, which has brought decades of peace, stability, and prosperity. We are global partners on defence and security and this exemplifies our mutual cooperation to assure a free and open Indo-Pacific,\u201d said US INDOPACOM Commander Adm Phil Davidson.<\/p>\n
The current situation in Indo-Pacific region was the topic of focus during Sitharaman\u2019s meetings with US leaders, besides which a wide range of issues were covered, including situation in Afghanistan, Pakistan, recent developments in Sri Lanka, Maldives and quick co-ordination between the two powerful armies for peace purposes.<\/p>\n
Issues like CAATSA and purchase of major defence equipment from Russia including S-400 did crop up during the meeting, but the Americans gave an impression that the Trump Administration is \u201ceager than ever\u201d to enhance its defence trade and strategic ties with India.<\/p>\n
While making it clear that India can buy weapons from any country it sees fit, the American leadership suggested the Asian nation to select the US over other countries.<\/p>\n
Some of the existing rules, regulations and legislations have slowed the process of defense acquisition from the US, the Indian delegation pointed out.<\/p>\n
This was said despite major changes like India being accorded a \u2018major defense partner\u2019 status in 2016, India being placed in STA-1 category this year and the sub-continent nation signing the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement in September.<\/p>\n
Given India\u2019s geographical location, its representatives said they were willing to place orders for latest military hardware and technology and not for anything else.<\/p>\n
Further, the officials said India does not want simple defense trade as co-development and co-production need to be essential in the India-US defense relationship, they pointed out.<\/p>\n
The Americans appeared on the same page, but expressed their sense of frustration over India\u2019s defence procurement process.<\/p>\n
At the conclusion of Sitharaman\u2019s visit, in a statement, US INDOPACOM said this partnership was a reflection of the increasing strategic importance of the US-India security relationship and the progress both countries have made in advancing their defence cooperation.<\/p>\n
The scope for mutual coordination and collaboration in the Indo-Pacific region continues to grow. Air forces of India and the US are currently conducting a 12-day military exercise in Kalaikunda and Panagarh air bases in West Bengal, with an aim to enhance operational coordination, according to India Air Forces officials. The \u2018Ex Cope India-18\u2019 will be the fourth edition in the series of bilateral drills between the Indian Air Force and the US Air Force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Friday concluded her five-day visit to the United States, which officials said was aimed at \u201caccelerating the momentum\u201d of India-US defence ties from enhancing India\u2019s naval capabilities in the Indian Ocean region, to increasing the footprint of American companies in Make in India programme, and substantially increasing bilateral defence trade. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49554,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49552\/revisions\/49554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}