NEW DELHI: In the first such top-level contact after the Biden administration took charge in Washington, India and US on Wednesday reiterated their “firm commitment” to further “deepen” their already expansive defence cooperation.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh said he and his US counterpart Lloyd J Austin, in a telephonic conversation on Wednesday evening, “exchanged views on bilateral, regional and global issues of mutual interest to strengthen our strategic partnership”.
Austin, the first African American US secretary of defence, has made similar introductory telephone calls to his counterparts in the UK, Japan, South Korea, Canada and Australia, among others, over the last few days.
“Singh and Austin, in the 20-minute conversation, reaffirmed their commitment to work together to strengthen the multi-faceted India-US defence cooperation and strategic partnership,” said an official.
The Biden administration has taken over at a time when India is going full steam ahead with its induction plan for the advanced S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile systems from Russia despite the threat of US sanctions.
The S-400 deliveries to India will begin in September-October this year, under the $5.43 billion (Rs 40,000 crore) contract inked with Russia in October 2018. All five mobile squadrons of the S-400 air defence systems will be progressively delivered by 2023.
India remains “hopeful” it will get a “national security waiver” from the Biden administration US law CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act), which was enacted in 2017 to prevent countries from buying Russian weapons or Iranian oil, from the incoming Biden administration. The US has, incidentally, imposed financial sanctions on China and Turkey for inducting the S-400 systems from Russia.
As part of the bilateral defence partnership, India has inked four “foundational military pacts” with the US, with the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Cooperation (BECA) being concluded last year.
India had earlier inked the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) with the US in 2002, which was followed by the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) in 2016, and then the Communications, Compatibility and Security Arrangement (COMCASA) in 2018.
The US has also bagged lucrative Indian defence deals worth over $21 billion just since 2007, with latest ones for 24 MH-60 ‘Romeo’ multirole naval helicopters and six more Apache attack choppers for $3 billion being inked during former President Donald Trump’s visit here in February, as was earlier reported by TOI.