Washington: Amid burgeoning Indo-US ties, senior officials from the two countries are meeting here today for four-day high-level talks to expand defence cooperation, including in production and procurement of arms and equipment.

The Indian delegation headed by defence secretary Vijay Singh will hold parleys with US officials led by Ambassador Eric Edleman, the Under Secretary of Defence for Policy at the meeting of the Defence Policy Group (DPG) on Wednesday and Thursday. Before that, the Defence Production and Procurement Group meeting will held with the Indian side headed by the Director General of Acquisitions S K Sharma.

This will be eight meeting of of the Defence Policy Group (DPG) which continues to be the primary mechanism to guide the India-US defence relationship. It held its seventh meeting on November 21-23. The DPG included an intensive exchange of views on the international strategic and security situation and on the further development of bilateral defence cooperation as envisaged under the June 28, 2005 Defence Framework set in place by former US Secretary for Defence Ronald Rumsfeld and the then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

The DPG also reviewed the reports of the four sub-groups - Military Cooperation Group, Joint Technology Group, Senior Security Technology Group and Senior Technology Security Group and the Defense Procurement Production Group (DPPG). The two sides are likely to look at increasing the transfers of military equipment and technology.

The US is ready to renew the supply of all the items in the pipeline when sanctions were imposed after 1998 nuclear tests.

Source : PTI