Defense Secretary James Mattis, who met India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval during his visit to India end September said, “They [India] are a force for stability in South Asia. They’re a force for stability in the Indo-Pacific region. They’re a nation coming into their own, economically, as a great nation, as they have steady growth rates going on right now.”
He noted that India and the U.S. now have a strategic convergence of two natural partners as the two largest democracies in the world. “There’s an opportunity here that we have not experienced in decades to tie us together in terms of broadened level of cooperation and a natural alignment with each other’s interests,” he said.
“There are a number of things in motion right now, and decisions will be coming very soon,” Mattis told members of House Armed Services during a Congressional hearing on Afghanistan, reports NDTV.
