India, US Reaffirm Free, Open Indo-Pacific, Talks To Deepen Defence Cooperation
India and US have reaffirmed their commitment to deepen and diversify the India-US Major Defence Partnership through expanded cooperation in new and emerging domains. This was decided during the bilateral talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden, ahead of the G20 Summit that kickstarted on Saturday.
The cooperation would be in new and emerging domains such as space, artificial intelligence (AI) and accelerated defence industrial collaboration. According to the joint statement, both leaders once again advocated a free, open, inclusive and resilient Indo-Pacific.
India is looking forward to hosting the next Quad Leaders’ Summit in 2024 and welcomed the decision to co-lead the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative Pillar on Trade Connectivity and Maritime Transport, further to the US decision to join IPOI in June 2023.
The countries also expressed interest in building resilient technology value chains and linking defence industrial ecosystems, greater technology sharing, co-development and co-production opportunities between India and US.
Leaders showed their satisfaction with the commencement of negotiations for a commercial agreement between GE Aerospace and Hindustan Aeronautical Limited (HAL) to manufacture GE F-414 jet engines in India and applauded the conclusion of a second Master Ship Repair Agreement, with the most recent agreement signed by the US Navy and Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders, in August 2023.
Both sides recommitted to advancing India’s emergence as a hub for the maintenance and repair of forward-deployed US Navy assets, other aircraft, vessels and commitments to invest more in India’s maintenance, repair and overhaul capabilities and facilities for aircraft.
Earlier, India and US established a Defence Acceleration Ecosystem (INDUS-X) to boost collaboration to harness the innovative work of the US and Indian defence sectors to address shared security challenges.
Biden also expressed his happiness on the Letter of Request from the Ministry of Defence of India to procure 31 General Atomics MQ-9B (16 Sky Guardian and 15 Sea Guardian) remotely piloted aircraft and their associated equipment, which will enhance the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities of India’s armed forces across all domains.
