The primary focus of the maiden 2+2 dialogue between India and the US is not about India's plans to buy a Russian missile defence system and oil from Iran, according to US Secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
Pompeo and Defence secretary Jim Mattis are headed to India for the talks with their Indian counterparts, External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
"They are (missile system purchase from Russia and oil from Iran) part of the conversation. They are part of the relationship. They will certainly come up, but I don't think they will be the primary focus of what it is we are trying to accomplish here," Pompeo said, according to news agency Press Trust of India (PTI).
India is going ahead with its plans to procure from Russia five S-400 Triumf air defence missile systems for nearly $4.5 billion.
"There are half-a-dozen things on the agenda that we are really intent on making progress on. Those decisions are important, they are important to the relationship for sure, but I don't see us resolving those or have the intention to resolve those during this set of meetings of the strategic dialogue.
"They are really about things that are big and strategic and will go on for 20, 40, 50 years. Those are the kind of topics that secretary Mattis and I are hoping to address - not that those are not important, but they are not part of the structural relationship between the two countries," Pompeo said.
The format of the 2+2 dialogue was agreed upon between India and the US during Prime minister Narendra Modi's visit to Washington in 2017. The dialogue was set to take place on July 6 in Washington, but the US postponed it citing "unavoidable reasons."
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