Biden praises Carter for deepening defense ties with India

Vice President Joe Biden has praised new Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on his key role in deepening defense relationship with India during his previous capacity as US Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon.
Carter's significant role in deepening Indo-US defense relationship in particular the path breaking Defense Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI) came for praise during his swearing in ceremony at the White House.
"This man has a driving intellectual force behind all that he does and all this administration has been doing, strengthening our nation's cyber capabilities, improving the way the Pentagon does business and implementing the Asian-Pacific rebalance, including deepening defense cooperation with India," Biden said.

Carter, the 25th Defense Secretary of the United States, is known for the path breaking Indo-US DTTI which has resulted in the two countries agreeing on co-production and co-development of four high-tech defense items.
One of his top priority agendas is to sign the renewable of the India US Defense Framework Agreement for another 10 years, the details of which were agreed by the two countries during the last month's India visit of US President Barack Obama.
"I could not be more confident that Ash Carter is going to do an outstanding job as Secretary of Defense. And he is hitting the ground running, having already spent a lot of time in this administration and in the Pentagon," Obama said as he met Carter later in the day at his Oval Office.

During the meeting, Carter talked about a wide range of security challenges and opportunities that the US faces around the world - everything from making sure that the US is dismantling ISIL, and not only stabilising the situation in Iraq but addressing the foreign fighter issue and countering the narrative of violent extremism that has been turbocharged through the Internet, Obama said.
"We had a chance to talk about the situation throughout Ukraine. We also had an opportunity to talk about how we maintain the strongest and most effective military in the world and how we keep faith with our outstanding men and women in uniform," Obama said.

Carter served as the Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon from 2011 to 2013.