Washington: India and United States have committed to strengthen bilateral security and civil nuclear cooperation with the establishment of six US nuclear power plants in India. The United States reaffirmed its strong support of India’s early membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) during the 9th round of the India-US Strategic Security Dialogue held in Washington DC on March 13.

The Indian delegation was led by foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale, while the US delegation was led by Andrea Thompson, under secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

The two sides exchanged views on a wide range of global security and non-proliferation challenges and reaffirmed their commitment to work together to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems and to deny access to such weapons by terrorists and non-state personnel.

Earlier, on March 12 this year, Indra Mani Pandey, additional secretary for disarmament and international security sffairs, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, and Dr Yleem DS Poblete, US assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification and compliance, co-chaired the third round of the India-US Space Dialogue, where they discussed trends in space threats, respective national space priorities, and opportunities for cooperation bilaterally and in multilateral fora.

The foreign secretary visited Washington DC between March 11 and 13 in connection with the bilateral Foreign Office Consultation and Strategic Security Dialogue with his US counterparts, under secretary of state for political affairs David Hale and under secretary of state for arms control and international security Andrea Thompson.

These were regular high-level dialogue mechanisms to review bilateral relations, exchange views on major foreign policy and security-related developments and coordinate respective positions on issues of common interest.

Meanwhile, both the nations have also sought tangible and irreversible action by Pakistan against terrorist groups and leaders.

In a tweet, US national security advisor John Bolton said that he met foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale to advance the progress on US-India strategic partnership and shared the vision for the Indo-Pacific. He also reiterated that the US stands shoulder-to-shoulder with India in the fight against terrorism.