India US bilateral talks on October 27

Ahead of the third India-US 2+2 Ministerial dialogues on October 27, the ministers and the US secretaries will be holding bilateral meetings on Monday. While Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and his counterpart, Mark Esper, will hold bilateral talks, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be meeting his counterpart, Mike Pompeo, at 7 pm at Hyderabad House.

Mike Pompeo has already arrived in New Delhi and he was accompanied by his wife Susan.

The visiting dignitaries will be hosted by Rajnath Singh and Jaishankar for dinner. It is expected that the two sides may finalise the long-pending Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) agreement to further boost bilateral defence ties. They will also call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the stay in the national capital.

The signing of the agreement would allow the United States to share precision satellite and topographical data from its constellation of military satellites on a real-time basis.

China defense cooperation, foundational agreements and other regional issues will be the prime focus of the meeting.

“We have made significant progress towards concluding the last foundational defence enabling agreement – the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement or BECA,” senior officials of the Trump administration said last week in an online news briefing.

“This agreement will allow for expanded geospatial information sharing between our Armed Forces. We are also seeking to expand secure communication capabilities between our respective militaries as well as between our foreign defence ministries and that figures prominently in what we are trying to accomplish in the information-sharing space,” they added.

Pompeo will also travel to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. These countries were struggling with a mountain of Chinese debt incurred to finance big infrastructure projects. The visit also assumes importance on the backdrop of China’s expansionist designs in the region.

Pompeo will conclude his trip in Indonesia, a week before the US presidential election, which is also locked in territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea.