US, Indian foreign, defense chiefs hold joint summit in New Delhi

​​​​​​​By Ahmad Adil

NEW DELHI (AA) – The US and Indian foreign affairs and defense chiefs on Friday began a top-level ministerial dialogue with a focus on strengthening their bilateral partnership and working together on regional and global issues.

Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh and Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar welcomed their US counterparts, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, for the Fifth India-U.S. 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue in the capital New Delhi.

“The 2+2 will enable a high-level review of progress being made in cross-cutting aspects of defence and security cooperation, technology value chain collaborations and people-to-people ties,” said the Indian Foreign Ministry.

“Both sides will also take stock of contemporary regional issues and exchange views about shared priorities for augmenting cooperation in multilateral platforms, and through frameworks such as Quad,” it added, referring to the partnership including India and the US as well as Australia and Japan.

Jaishankar said earlier that he met Blinken and they discussed West Asia, the Indo-Pacific, and other regional issues.

“An open and productive conversation on further developing our strategic partnership,” he wrote on X.

Blinken told his counterpart that both countries are building “on a rather remarkable year of engagement,” and “we have not only the strongest bilateral partnership we ever had, but also a regional one and, indeed, a global one.”

The two sides are expected to exchange views on the current conflicts in the Middle East as well as Ukraine.

Austin said of technological and military cooperation: “We’re integrating our industrial bases, strengthening our interoperability, and sharing cutting-edge technology.”