US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Delhi on Thursday night to attend the India-US "2+2" foreign and defence ministerial dialogue slated to be held on Friday. US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has already reached Delhi for the meeting.
"A warm welcome to US Secretary of State @SecBlinken as he arrives in New Delhi to co-chair the 5th India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue," Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said on X. "The visit will give further boost to India-US Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership!" he added.
The Indian side at the dialogue will be led by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. The dialogue will focus on deepening the security cooperation and partnership between both countries.
State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters at his daily news conference on Wednesday that this was something that was raised during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit earlier this year. "I know the Secretary looks forward to being there and engaging directly with his counterparts on this," Patel said in response to a question.
Meanwhile, the current conflict in the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific region and the Russia-Ukraine war are likely to be among the topics of discussion during the 2+2 ministerial meeting. "(The 2+2 dialogue) allows our two countries to have high-level discussions about strategic and defence issues. In addition, the Secretary will hold meetings with External Affairs Minister Jaishankar and other senior Indian officials, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Donald Lu told reporters last week.
He added that China would be one of the topics of discussion. "The co-operation in the Indo-Pacific in terms of our efforts to support a free, open, secure, and prosperous Indo-Pacific is very much formally on the agenda. I think we will be interested to hear how India's discussions with China are going related to border issues, and I'm sure our Indian counterparts will be very interested to hear about Wang Yi's visit to the United States and the announced meeting between President (Joe) Biden and President Xi (Jinping) at the APEC Summit," he said.
Biden and Xi are expected to meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit to be held in San Francisco next week.
