India and the US will sign the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA), the latest of four founding agreements to share confidential information and sales of advanced military equipment, during the 2 + 2 ministerial dialogue on Tuesday.
The agreement, which will facilitate the sharing of classified satellite and sensor data, is in discussions between Defense Minister Rajnath Singh and his visiting US counterpart Mark Esper on Monday. The signing of the pact will be one of the key results of the 2 + 2 dialogue between the ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense of the two parties.
“The two ministers expressed satisfaction that the BECA agreement will be signed during the visit,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement following the meeting between Singh and Esper, who arrived in New Delhi on Monday afternoon along with the secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
BECA is considered the last of the founding agreements signed by India and the United States. The two sides have been sharing real-time intelligence under the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA), which was signed in 2018. The two countries signed the General Military Information Security Agreement (GSOMIA) in 2002 and the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) in 2016.
Pompeo held a separate meeting with Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, during which they discussed concerns and interests, including stability and security in Asia, and the global situation and contemporary challenges, people familiar with the events said on condition of anonymity. The border confrontation between India and China was understood to have figured in the discussions, although people said specific issues would be addressed in the 2 + 2 dialogue.
Pompeo briefed Jaishankar on the US administration’s thinking on the situation in Afghanistan and the peace process. Jaishankar “highlighted the stakes India and its continued concern that decisions are made by Afghans themselves without the” use of force, “said one of the people cited above. He also made it clear that “cross-border terrorism is completely unacceptable,” the person said.
India has been concerned about the sharp increase in violence in Afghanistan, mainly by elements with ties to the Pakistani military, even as the Taliban and the Afghan government are holding talks in Doha. New Delhi has already said that the outcome of the intra-Afghan dialogue should ensure that Afghanistan’s soil is not used for anti-Indian activities.
Jaishankar stressed the “uniqueness of technology and the flow of talent connecting” India and the US, and said that “a knowledge economy with increased data sensitivity makes an even stronger case for collaboration.” , according to people. An innovative partnership would be critical to the future of the two sides and their policies must support this, he added.
Education is a special link between India and the United States and both should work to further expand cooperation in this area, said Jaishankar, as quoted by people.
The discussions between Jaishankar and Pompeo, described as productive, followed their meeting in Tokyo earlier this month, and they believed that bilateral ties had grown in almost every domain, including trade, energy, defense and education, in the last four years. The two leaders followed up on the Indo-Pacific engagement and Quad deliberations, and also focused on maritime security, counter-terrorism, open connectivity and resilient supply chains, the people said.
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Upon arrival in the Southern Bloc, Esper received a three-service honor guard prior to his meeting with Singh, during which the two leaders reviewed bilateral defense cooperation, including military-to-military cooperation, secure communication systems, and the information exchange, and defense industrial and commercial affairs. They also discussed ways to advance bilateral cooperation, the statement said.
The US Secretary of Defense welcomed Australia’s participation in this year’s Malabar exercise featuring the navies of India, Japan and the United States.
India last week invited Australia to join the exercise, making it the first military exercise in recent years to feature all members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad). The foreign ministers of the Quad nations held their second meeting in Tokyo on October 6.
Singh and Esper welcomed the close engagements between the Indian and US armed forces and discussed “potential new areas of cooperation, both at the service-to-service level and at the joint level,” the statement said.
They called for the continuation of existing defense dialogue mechanisms at all levels during the Covid-19 pandemic, in particular the Military Cooperation Group (MCG), according to the statement. “They also discussed the requirements to expand the deployments of liaison officers,” he added.
Singh spoke about the initiatives under India’s ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (Self-Sufficient India) initiative and encouraged investments in the country’s defense industry. He invited US companies to take advantage of India’s liberalized policies and favorable defense industry ecosystem.
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