U.S. Defence Secretary Ashton Carter on Sunday said India and the U.S. must work together to make the world safer for generations to come.
“We have so many activities we are doing together to help secure this part of the world and other parts of the world,” Mr. Carter told journalists at the Mangeshi temple in central Goa on the first day of his three-day visit to India.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar accompanied Mr. Carter on his visit to the temple and then to the Old Goa Church complex.
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Mr. Carter called his visit to India “significant” and said Indian and U.S. interests overlapped and the two democracies were working jointly to help secure the global environment. Mr Carter, who will hold talks with Mr. Parrikar in New Delhi on Tuesday, said: “India, of course, has its own interests that it pursues, but our interests overlap in many important ways and we must work together to make the world safer for our children.”
He said his talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mr. Parrikar would focus on co-production and cooperation in defence equipment manufacture and technology transfer, taking into consideration the ‘Make in India’ initiative. Mr. Carter will head on Monday for the naval base in Karwar, where he will visit the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya .