Hope US can complete major pending defence sales to India: Pete Hegseth

The US has expressed hope that it can complete several major pending American defence sales to India, as it stressed that Washington and Delhi are mutually aware of the security concerns in the Indo-Pacific region.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday at the Pentagon and said he had a productive conversation on advancing the India-US defence partnership, building on growing convergences of interests, capabilities and responsibilities. 

 

According to the Department of Defence (DoD) news article, Hegseth said the US and India are mutually aware of the security concerns in the region, and both nations have the ability to counter that threat together.  Hegseth also touched on US efforts to provide India with the tools needed to counter threats in the Indo-Pacific region, the DoD news said.

"The United States is very pleased with the successful integration of many US defence items into India's inventory," Hegseth said, according to the DoD news article. 

 

"And building on this progress, we hope we can complete several major pending US defence sales to India, expand our shared defence industrial cooperation and coproduction efforts, strengthen interoperability ... between our forces, and then formally sign a new 10-year Framework for the US-India Major Defence Partnership ... which we hope to do very soon."  Jaishankar, in his opening remarks, said, We believe that our defence partnership is, today, truly one of the most consequential pillars of the relationship.

"It's not built merely on shared interest, but we believe really deepening convergence and of capabilities, of responsibilities and what we do in the Indo-Pacific, we believe, is absolutely crucial to its strategic stability," he said. 

 

Jaishankar said that the world is a complicated place, perhaps growing in its complexity, and certainly our partnership and the contribution that we can make together, I think, would be of immense importance, not just for us, I think, but for the larger region, I would even argue for the world.

Hegseth said that almost right at the beginning of the administration, President [Donald] Trump and Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi set a strong foundation for our relationship, which we're building on here today: productive, pragmatic and realistic. 

 

And our nations boast a rich and growing history of cooperation driven by a shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, Hegseth said.

According to DoD news, Hegseth and Jaishankar discussed participation in the next India-US Defence Acceleration Ecosystem Summit, where the two nations will continue to build on US-India defence industrial cooperation and produce new innovations in technology and manufacturing.

"We're eager to work alongside you to realise our shared goals," Hegseth said. "They're deep and ongoing."