New Delhi: US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin and German Federal Minister of Defence Boris Pistorius are visiting New Delhi for bilateral talks with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, informed the Ministry of Defence on Saturday. Rajnath Singh meeting with the US Secretary of Defence will be held on June 5, while talks with the German Federal Minister of Defence will occur on June 6. A host of bilateral defence cooperation issues, with a focus on industrial cooperation, are likely to be discussed during the two meetings.
Lloyd Austin India visit
Austin will arrive on Sunday from Singapore on a two-day visit to discuss ways to further expand the bilateral strategic engagement ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's trip to Washington. This will be his second visit to India, the previous one being in March 2021.
According to news agency PTI, people familiar with Austin's visit said Singh and the US defence secretary are set to discuss a number of new defence cooperation projects that are set to be unveiled after Modi's talks with US President Joe Biden in Washington more than two weeks later.
“China's aggressive behaviour in the Indo-Pacific region as well as along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and ways to combat the threat of terrorism are likely to figure in the talks between Singh and Austin on Monday,” they said.
Boris Pistorius India visit
The German minister will be on a four-day visit to India beginning on Monday. He will arrive from Indonesia. Apart from his meeting with the defence minister, Pistorius is likely to meet a few defence start-ups during an event organised by Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) in New Delhi. On June 7, he will travel to Mumbai where he is likely to visit Headquarters, Western Naval Command and Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders.
The India-US defence and strategic ties have been on an upswing in the last few years. The two countries have signed key defence and security pacts over the last few years, including the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) in 2016 that allows their militaries to use each other's bases for repair and replenishment of supplies.
The two sides also signed the COMCASA (Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement) in 2018, which provides for interoperability between the two militaries and the sale of high-end technology from the United States to India.
In October 2020, India and the US sealed the BECA (Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement) to further boost the bilateral defence ties. The pact provides for the sharing of high-end military technology, logistics and geospatial maps between the two countries.
(With PTI inputs)
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