The meeting between the two leaders took place on the sidelines of the ASEAN-India Defence Ministers' Informal Meeting in Kuala Lumpur.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Friday signed an agreement on the framework for the US-India Major Defence Partnership in Kuala Lumpur, ahead of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus), scheduled to take place on November 1.
“This will usher in a new era in our already strong defence partnership,” Rajnath Singh said in a post on X.
“This Defence Framework will provide policy direction to the entire spectrum of the India-US Defence Relationship. It is a signal of our growing strategic convergence and will herald a new decade of partnership,” Rajnath Singh added in the post.
“Defence will remain as a major pillar of our bilateral relations. Our partnership is critical for ensuring a free, open and rules-based Indo-Pacific region,” India’s defence minister further wrote in the post.
Announcing the development, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the two nations' “This advances our defense partnership, a cornerstone for regional stability and deterrence.”
“We’re enhancing our coordination, info sharing, and tech cooperation. Our defense ties have never been stronger,” Hegseth added.
The meeting between the two leaders took place on the sidelines of the ASEAN-India Defence Ministers’ Informal Meeting in Kuala Lumpur.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh left for Kuala Lumpur yesterday to take part in the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) being held in Malaysia on 1st November.
The Defence Minister would also address the forum on ‘Reflection on 15 years of ADMM-Plus and Chart the Way Forward’.
Yesterday in a post on X, Rajnath Singh said that the second edition of ASEAN-India Defence Ministers’ Informal Meeting, under the chairmanship of Malaysia, would take place on October 31, on the sidelines of ADMM-Plus.
The minister is expected to hold bilateral meetings with more counterparts from the participating ADMM-Plus nations as well as the senior leadership from Malaysia.
ADMM is the highest defence consultative and cooperative mechanism in ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), according to a press release by the government.
ADMM-Plus is a platform for ASEAN member states (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste & Vietnam) and its eight Dialogue Partners (India, US, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Australia & New Zealand) to strengthen security and defence cooperation, it added.
It further stated that India became the dialogue partner of ASEAN in 1992, and the inaugural ADMM-Plus was convened in Hanoi, Vietnam, on October 12, 2010. Since 2017, ADMM-Plus is held annually to bolster the defence cooperation among ASEAN and plus countries.
Under the construct of ADMM-Plus, India is the co-chair of the Experts Working Group on Counter Terrorism with Malaysia for the cycle 2024-2027. The second edition of ASEAN-India Maritime Exercise is also scheduled in 2026, it added.
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