India and the U.S signed the bilateral Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) that will give the militaries of both countries access to each other’s facilities for supplies and repairs. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter said in a joint statement that LEMOA “will facilitate additional opportunities for practical engagement and exchange.”
LEMOA is one of the four ‘foundational agreements’ that the U.S. enters into with its defence partners. With LEMOA, India has signed two of the four. After the first one in 2002 – the General Security Of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) — the governments led by BJP’s A B Vajpayee and Congress’s Manmohan Singh were wary of signing the other three amid concerns that these may lock India into an uncomfortably close embrace with the U.S.
Communications and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) and Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) for Geospatial Intelligence are the two pending ones. Mr. Parrikar said no timeline has been set for discussing these.
The Minister and the Secretary also discussed cooperation on capabilities to augment India’s capacity for maritime domain awareness, but there was no mention of India’s request for Predator drones for this purpose, it said.
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