In a significant move, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh held a telephonic conversation with US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin on Monday. The discussion touched on a wide range of bilateral, regional security and defence cooperation issues.

They also reviewed the recent bilateral events including the INDUS-X Summit held in New Delhi in February, and the bilateral Tri-Service exercise ‘Tiger Triumph’ which commenced on March 18 will take place until March 31.

The exercise is aimed at developing interoperability for conducting HADR operations and refining Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to enable rapid and smooth coordination between forces of both countries.

During the call, the US Secretary commended the role played by the Indian Navy in conducting anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean Region.

Both the Ministers discussed ways to implement the India-US Defence Cooperation Roadmap which was concluded last year. Other defence industrial cooperation issues such as repair of US naval ships in Indian shipyards were also discussed.

(Inputs from ANI)