New Delhi: The transatlantic military alliance NATO is ready for “more engagement” with India, according to the US ambassador to NATO, Julianne Smith, after confirming that an “informal exchange” occurred this month.
During an online media interaction with Indian reporters on Friday night, Smith was asked if there had been any contact with the Indian government. “So there has been just some informal exchanges among some NATO officials and some representatives from India at what is called the Raisina Dialogue,” she replied.
Smith added that the exchanges on the sidelines of the Raisina Dialogue from March 3 to 5 was “a start” and had “opened up the conversation a little bit”. “But, certainly, the NATO alliance is open to more engagement should India seek that,” he said.
She said that NATO has 40 different partners with engagement at varied levels. Along with other countries in Asia, NATO has a bilateral dialogue with Pakistan, mainly over logistical support for foreign troops in Afghanistan.
At the NATO foreign ministerial conference starting next week, foreign ministers of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea have also been invited.
“Various countries come through the door seeking different levels of political engagement, or sometimes countries are much more interested in working on, say, interoperability or standardisation questions. So they vary, but I think the message that has already been sent back to India is that the NATO Alliance certainly is open to more engagement with India should that country take an interest in pursuing that,” stated Smith.
Regarding the recent outreach of the alliance toward the Indo-Pacific, Smith said it began with mentioning the region in the strategic documents of NATO.
“And so there I would cite the NATO strategic concept, which was rolled out last summer at the Madrid Summit. Many of you know that this is the first time that the alliance acknowledges the importance of focusing on the PRC (China) as a systemic challenge for the alliance and why it is important for NATO allies to enhance and deepen relationships across the border in the region. And NATO has done just that,” she said.
Smith noted that the members were increasingly inviting countries from the Indo-Pacific to NATO headquarters, ministerial meetings and summits “so that we can learn from our partners in terms of what they are experiencing, just general challenges to their own security and the key principles that we hold dear”.
The senior US diplomat conveyed that US President Joe Biden has been “increasingly interested in ways to bring together America’s Allies across the Atlantic, across the Pacific, to again bring about a collective opportunity for us to share ways to counter hybrid tactics”.
While Smith characterised the informal dialogue in Delhi in March as the first contact, the Indian Express had reported last August that the first India-NATO political dialogue had been held two years earlier in December 2019.
Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi stated during a media briefing on August 12, 2022 that India and NATO “have kept in touch in Brussels at different levels for quite some time now”.
The confirmation of an India-NATO discussion, albeit informally, takes place against the backdrop of the ongoing Ukraine war on which New Delhi has taken a neutral position.
Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that the possibility of NATO expansion to Ukraine was one of the reasons for sending in troops in February 2022. While NATO has not directly aided Ukraine, many members of the alliance have sent arms and ammunition to the Ukrainian government to use against the Russian military on its soil.
In an answer to another question about differences in NATO over Ukraine, Smith asserted, “We’re united in applying maximum pressure on Moscow to try and get Moscow to stop this ongoing war inside Ukraine, and we are united around the fact that we have all taken some serious steps over the last year to reinforce NATO’s Eastern flank so that those countries on NATO’s eastern edge feel like the Alliance is adequately addressing their security and defence needs.”
