Carter was instrumental in US announcing India as a major defense partner.
Speaking at his final news conference as the Defense Secretary of the United States, Ashton Carter said US-India relationship is on the right path and both countries are committed to discussing ways of improving the partnership by sharing of technology and know-how.
“We’re on the right path,” he said at the press conference, held at the Pentagon. “It’s just a matter of taking those steps. And they involve deepening our cooperation in lots of ways. I mean, there’s exercises and other kinds of operational activities.”
Carter has been engaged in efforts to make the US-India defense relationship stronger for many years and this is evident from the way the relationship of the two democracies burgeoned.
It was under Carter’s tenure that US announced India as a major defense partner.
“There is something that I think Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi and Defense Minister (Manohar) Parrikar have been equally intent upon as President Obama and myself, which is the development of defense relationships for new technology, which involve technology sharing, co-production, and so forth,” Carter said in response to a question.
“We have a great number of projects. I was in New Delhi not long ago and discussing all these, and there are many of them — so too many to enumerate. All of them on course. They all have their own schedules and sort of technical timelines to them,” he added.
“But this is a relationship which is, I’ve said many times, is destined for the future because of the nature of our two societies, the values that we share; the human relationship between our peoples,” Carter concluded.
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