The Pentagon today hosted a group of top Indian defence officials for the 14th India-US Defence Policy Group meeting, the first such talks after the signing of the Defence Framework Pact between the two countries.
The meeting also comes a day after the day-long US visit of Pakistan Army Chief Gen Raheel, who had met CIA Director John Brennan and US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter.
"The 14th US-India Defence Policy Group (DPG) is being held today," Pentagon spokesman Cmdr Bill Urban told PTI.
Co-chaired by US Under-Secretary of Defence for Policy Christine Wormuth and Indian Defence Secretary G Mohan Kumar, the meeting was also attended by Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nisha Desai Biswal.
"The meeting is our annual senior-level bilateral defence dialogue and is the primary mechanism for guiding the strategic defence relationship," Urban said.
"I cannot provide a specific agenda, but the two sides will discuss common security interest and explore ways to further strengthen the military-to-military and defence relationship as a whole," he said in response to a question.
The 14th India-US Defence Policy Group meeting is being held weeks before the scheduled first ever US visit of Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on December 10.
It was also the first meeting after the Defence Framework Pact between the two countries was signed during the India visit of Carter.
The new Framework agreement provides avenues for high level strategic discussions, continued exchanges between armed forces of both countries, and strengthening of defence capabilities.
(Reopens FGN14)
James said she also looks forward to "congratulating the Chief of Air Force in particular on what is I think a magnificent execution of the C-17 operation where Indian citizens were evacuated from South Sudan. Well done on that, well done.
India had launched 'Operation Sankat Mochan' to evacuate about 600 of its citizens from the war-torn country. The Indians were ferried back to the country by Indian Air Force carrier C-17 Globemasters.
James leads a globally deployed force of nearly 660,000 active-duty, Guard, Reserve and civilian Airmen and oversees the Air Force's annual budget of more than USD 139 billion.
The focus of her visit to the Asian countries, her first as Air Force Secretary, will be to underscore US support for efforts that bring peace, security, and prosperity to the Asia-Pacific region and to seek opportunities to deepen and expand the relationship between US and ally air forces.
"The future that the US would like to see in the Indo- Asia Pacific region is a future where we are all working, collaborating and training together and not just in a military sense but in a political and economic sense also," she said.
"Freedom of navigation and legal use of the sea and airspace is a centralpart of this idea of cooperationand that is why the Air Forceand the US Navy have engaged in freedom of navigation operations. We will fly and operate wherever international law allows and we believe that is the right of all countries to do so," she said.
Asserting that the US considers the recent ruling from The Hague on South China Sea to be "legally binding on all parties", she said Washington hopes that "all of the claimants in the South China Sea will exercise restraint in the future and will work to lower tensions".
"We certainly support the peaceful resolution of the disputes in this region. I look forward to discussing this and other matters with my counterparts during the visit in the region," she said, adding that the US stands "very firmly" behind the principle of freedom of navigation.
