Top cabinet officials of India and the United States held talks on Friday, stressing the need to further strengthen their friendship to be able to deal with urgent global and geopolitical challenges.
The so-called annual “2+2 Dialogue” between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and their Indian counterparts Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, aims to boost defence cooperation and align the policy objectives of the two countries in the Indo-Pacific region.
Although Washington is preoccupied with the crises in Gaza and Ukraine, Friday’s talks are expected to focus more on taking forward the India-US defence and strategic relationship and regional issues in South Asia and the larger Indian Ocean region, officials and analysts have said.— Reuters
