“Today’s meetings indicative of enduring commitment of India-US partnership”: Foreign Secy after 2+2 Dialogue

New Delhi [India]: Multiple partnerships ranging from trade, investment, technology and supply chain resilience were discussed in the India-US 2+2 Dialogue and the meetings were indicative of enduring commitment of India-US bilateral partnership, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said on Friday.

He further said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the US and President Joe Biden’s visit to India during the G20 Summit has given a strong leadership driven momentum to further bolster this relationship between the two countries.

Addressing the special briefing after the fifth 2+2 Dialogue, Vinay Kwatra said, “We have just now concluded a very rewarding and substantive, the fifth edition of 2+2 dialogue between India and the US. The meetings today and the atmosphere surrounding the meeting were all indicative of the enduring commitment of the bilateral partnership, particularly importantly our desire to work together to expand this partnership further and to deepen it more”.

He further highlighted about the intensity of diplomatic engagement between India and the United States especially this year.

“We have had two very high heads of the state visit; Prime Minister Modi had a historic visit to the US in June this year. And more recently, we had the honour of welcoming President Biden on a successful visit to India on the occasion of G20 Summit,” Kwatra said.

“The collective outcome of PM’s visit to India and President Biden’s visit to India have really given us a strong leadership driven momentum to bolster, strengthen and expand this relationship much further” he added.

The Foreign Secretary further said that the common efforts of New Delhi and Washington towards value and supply chain securitisation, space partnership and combating terrorism formed part of overview of the bilateral relationship.

“In 2+2 discussion, the principals on both sides – Defence Minister and EAM on the Indian side and Secretary of State and Secretary of Defence on the US side – undertook a comprehensive review of our bilateral relations. We discussed multiple partnerships…the trade and investment partnership, the technology partnership, partnerships relating to the area of critical and emerging technologies,” Kwatra said.

“Value and supply chain securitisation of different products and services, partnership in the field of space, our continuing engagement in the field of mineral securities, our common efforts in combating terrorism – these and much more formed part of the overview of bilateral relationship that was undertaken by the principals earlier in the 2+2 dialogue” he added.

The fifth round of India-US 2+2 Dialogue were held on Friday in the national capital.

It was co-chaired by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh with their US counterparts, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin.