Sushma, Sitharaman to visit Washington for strategic 2+2 dialogue

New York/New Delhi, June 22 (IANS): India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will hold the first strategic 2+2 Dialogue with their US counterparts on July 6 in Washington, the State Department announced on Thursday.

Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo and Secretary of Defense James Mattis will host the Indian ministers at the meeting that “will focus on strengthening strategic, security, and defence cooperation as the United States and India jointly confront global challenges”, the Department said.In New Delhi, the External Affairs Ministry said that Sushma Swaraj and Sitharaman will visit the US for the first meeting of the ‘2+2 Dialogue’ on July 6, where “the two sides are expected to shares perspectives on strengthening their strategic and security ties and exchange views on a range of bilateral, regional and global issues of mutual interest”.

Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh and US Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan discussed the agenda for the 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue, which was announced during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with President Donald Trump last June, on the sidelines of the G20 Ministerial Meeting in Buenos Aires last month, it said.

The meeting was to have been held in April, but was postponed because of changes in the leadership of the State Department after Rex Tillerson resigned and Pompeo was in the process of taking over.

The dialogue is a centrepiece of the growing ties between the US and India which Washington wants to scale up by extending the strategic vision from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean. Trump has asked for India’s help in bringing stability to Afghanistan through aid programmes, but by reimposing sanctions on Iran he has threatened those very efforts.