NEW DELHI – India and the United States will hold the inaugural 2+2 meetingof their defence and foreign ministers in Washington on July 6, the USstate department announced Thursday, ending months of uncertainty dogged bypostponements and cancellations over scheduling and personnel changes.

This will be the first simultaneous meeting of the Indian defence andexternal affairs ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Sushma Swaraj and theirUS counterparts James Mattis and Mike Pompeo in a format announced lastAugust after a call between Prime Minister Narendra modi and PresidentDonald Trump.

At the July meeting, officials will “focus on strengthening strategic,security, and defense cooperation as the United States and India jointlyconfront global challenges”, said the state department in a statement.

Officials expect to discuss, specifically, the indirect impact of USsanctions on Russia and Iran. A major Indian defence deal for the RussianS-400 air defence systems is at risk of attracting secondary sanction fromthe US unless an exception was made, as proposed and backed by Mattis andPompeo.

The meeting will take place among growing defence and diplomatic ties andconvergence but increasing trade differences caused by President Trump’sdecision to slap a tariff of 25% and 10% on steel and aluminium imports.India has retaliated with its own tariffs on imports from the US and hasalso challenged Trump’s tariffs at the World Trade Organisation. Trade is aseparate discussion but and new and continuing issues are being thrashedout by the two countries in other forums.

This meeting was earlier scheduled to take place in April and preparationswere well under way when President Trump unexpectedly fired the thensecretary of state Rex Tillerson. As his replacement, Pompeo, could nothave been confirmed in time for the 2+2 dialogue, the meeting was pushed toa later date.

And in the subsequent weeks, the US was focussed solely on PresidentTrump’s meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. India has proposed July 6,as reported by Hindustan Times earlier, but had to wait for a confirmationfrom Washington DC, which finally came through.

The two sides will be expecting to discuss a whole range of issues indefence and external affairs such as cooperation on counter-terrorism,which is always accorded high priority by the countries, and Afghanistan,which received a significant pitch in President Trump’s new South Asiastrategy.

As a sign of growing defence ties, the US renamed its Pacific Command, oneof its six geographical military commands, as the Indo-Pacific Command,which has been called a “significant” development by experts.