A maritime information agreement between the two countries is also being discussed.
India and the United States will sign the latest founding agreement, Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Cooperation (BECA) during the 2 + 2 ministerial dialogue on October 27, the Defense Ministry confirmed on October 26.
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“The two ministers expressed their satisfaction that the BECA agreement will be signed during the visit,” the Ministry said in a statement following the bilateral talks between Defense Minister Rajnath Singh and US Defense Secretary Mark Esper. Both Esper and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in the national capital on October 26.
The two ministers reviewed bilateral defense cooperation covering “military-to-military cooperation, secure communication systems and information exchange, defense trade and industrial affairs” and also discussed ways to carry out bilateral cooperation, the statement said. The Ministry indicated that they discussed possible new areas of cooperation both at the service-to-service level and at the joint level.
A maritime information agreement between India and the United States is also being discussed, an official source said. India already has such an agreement with other Quad countries, Australia and Japan. As reported by The Hindu Last month, in the run-up to 2 + 2, the United States was interested in India signing BECA and discussions continued to resolve differences. One of the main differences was the question of reciprocity in the exchange of geospatial data.
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A US State Department official said in Washington on October 24 that the talks will focus on four topics: regional security cooperation, defense information exchange, military-to-military interactions and defense trade. “This agreement [BECA] it will allow greater exchange of geospatial information among our armed forces. We also seek to expand secure communication capabilities between our respective armies, as well as between our ministries of foreign affairs and defense, and that also occupies a prominent place in what we are trying to achieve in the information exchange space, “he said.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, S. Jaishankar, and Mr. Pompeo held talks in the evening at the Hyderabad House. The 2 + 2 inter-ministerial talks are scheduled for October 26 at 10 a.m. Afterwards, the two visiting secretaries will visit the Prime Minister at his residence. Following talks on Tuesday, US officials will depart on a trip to Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Indonesia.
As of 2016, India has signed three fundamental agreements: the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), the Communications Security and Compatibility Agreement (COMCASA), while the General Military Information Security Agreement (GSOMIA) was signed. long time ago. In the last 2 + 2 dialogue, an extension of the GSOMIA, the Industrial Safety Annex (ISA), was signed.
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The ministry said the two ministers “also discussed the requirements to expand the deployments of liaison officers.” India has recently posted a liaison officer to the US Navy Central Command in Bahrain and is also considering a request from the US for the dispatch of liaison officers to the US Indo-Pacific Command. (USINDOPACOM) and the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). The United States has already assigned a liaison officer at the Indian Navy Information Fusion Center for the Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) aimed at promoting Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA).
Last week, India announced that Australia will join the Malabar exercise next month, made up of Japan and the United States. The Ministry said that Mr. Esper appreciated Australia’s participation in the Malabar 2020 exercise.
There has been a sharp increase in India’s maritime interactions with the Quad countries on a bilateral basis focused on sharing information to enhance Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) in the Indian Ocean and Indo-Pacific Region.
While LEMOA has been operational since then, COMCASA is in advanced stages of commissioning. On September 25, for the first time, a US Navy P-8A long-range maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) landed on the Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar (A&N) islands to refuel under LEMOA.
In July, Indian Navy front-line warships conducted a Passage Exercise (PASSEX) with the US Navy’s Nimitz carrier strike group near the A&N islands while transiting. through the Indian Ocean after conducting Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOP) in the South China Sea.
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