New Delhi: US Secretary Antony Blinken will arrive in India on a two-day visit on Tuesday with a vast agenda that displays a rapidly growing security situation in Afghanistan, increasing the involvement of Indo-Pacific and ways to increase the efforts of Covid-19 response between other .
It will be the first visit of Blinken to India after assuming costs as Secretary of the US and the third by the high-ranking Biden government officials after power in January.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited India in March while our special envoy about climate change John Kerry went to New Delhi in April.
Blinken is scheduled to meet the Minister of JaisanHank’s external affairs, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and will summon Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday before leaving for Kuwait as part of a two-state tour.
“The visit of the Blinken Secretary is the opportunity to continue high-level bilateral dialogue and enhance the Indian-US global strategic partnership,” said the external ministry last week while announcing a visit.
“Both parties will review the bilateral relations of India-US which are strong and diverse, and the potential to consolidate further,” he said.
Assistant Secretary of Acting for South Asian and Central Affairs Dean Thompson said on Friday that the discussion would focus on improving the bond in the fields of security, defense, cyber and counterterrorism.
“We collaborate throughout the government about these problems, including through ordinary US-Indian working group meetings, and we hope to further strengthen our relationship with India to ensure a safer and safer world,” he said.
People who are familiar with the agenda of the visit said the two parties would extensively would extensively consider the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan with the Taliban to increase their hostility in an effort to seize control of new regions in the country.
Afghanistan witnessed a series of terror attacks in the past few weeks when the US attracted the majority of his troops and was looking at Drawdown on August 31, ending almost two decades of his military presence in the country.
Both parties are also expected to explore ways to deepen defense collaboration, including exercises, defense transfers and technology ahead of the next edition of 2 + 2 defense dialogue and foreign minister who will be held in the US this year, they said.
Both parties will also discuss ways to deepen the involvement in the Indo-Pacific region and in increasing the efforts of Covid-19 response.
Both parties are also expected to see the implementation of the Quad Vaccine initiative.
They are also expected to focus on ways to increase trade and investment bonds, in addition to seeing opportunities in health care, education, digital domains, people quoted above.
In talks, India will continue to encourage to ensure the supply chain is open and consistent for the materials and items needed for vaccine production, the people quoted above.
Increasing defense and strategic bonds is expected to find out in the conversation.
Indo-US defense bond has been upswing in recent years.
In June 2016, the US has appointed India “Main Defense Partner”.
The two countries have also signed the main defense and security pact over the past few years, including the memorandum of logistics agreements (LEMOA) in 2016 which allowed their military to use their respective bases for repairs and charging supplies and provide more in collaboration.
Both parties also signed Comcasa (Communication Compatibility and Security Agreement) in 2018 which provided interoperability between two military and provided sales of upscale technology from the US to India.
In October last year, India and the US sealed BECA (basic exchange agreements and cooperation) to further enhance bilateral defense bonds.
This pact provides to share upper-class military technology, logistics and geospatial maps between the two countries.