Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday held talks with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in New Delhi, both pledging to strengthen military cooperation between the two countries.
Elevating the U.S.-India major defense partnership is a priority of the Biden-Harris administration, Hindustan Times reported citing Austin's remarks.
"We'll do that through regional security cooperation and military-to-military interactions and defense trade," said Austin.
The U.S. Defense Secretary told reporters that the issue of human rights of minorities in India was also discussed, saying that "partners need to be able to have those kinds of discussions," according to NDTV.
Singh mentioned the recent virtual Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) meeting, stressing bilateral and multilateral cooperation within the frame.
He added that the two sides agreed to "pursue enhanced cooperation," such as expanding military-to-military engagement across services, information-sharing, cooperation in emerging sectors of defense, and mutual logistics support.
They also discussed addressing non-traditional challenges such as oil spills, environmental disasters, drug trafficking, and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, according to Singh.
Austin's visit to India is the last leg of a three-nation visit that included Japan and South Korea, making the first visit by a top member of U.S. President Joe Biden's administration to the country.
He met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his arrival in New Delhi on Friday and held talks with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. On Saturday, he also met External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar.
