Rajnath Singh Begins Five-Day Visit To Mongolia, Japan Today

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will start his five-day visit to two east Asian countries on Monday. On the first leg, he will pay an official visit to Mongolia from 5 to 7 September and then visit quad partner Japan from 8 to 9 September.

Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in a statement, “The upcoming visit by Defence Minister is the first ever visit by an Indian Defence Minister to Mongolia and will further consolidate the defence cooperation and strategic partnership between the two countries."

In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Mongolia and announced a 1 billion dollar line of credit to develop infrastructure. 

Rajnath Singh will be in japan to join others for a two-plus-two dialogue ministerial dialogue. India is holding two-plus-two designed dialogues with all Quad partners in recent years. From India, External Affairs minister, S. Jaishankar will join him in Japan later.

The two-plus-two dialogue ministerial dialogue started in 2019, to deepen bilateral security and defence cooperation. 

During the visit, Rajnath Singh will hold bilateral talks with Mongolia's Defence Minister, Lt Gen. Saikhanbayar and will also meet U. Khurelsukh.

India and Mongolia share a strategic partnership and defence is a vital pillar of this partnership. The bilateral defence engagements with Mongolia have been expanding over a period of time.

The two countries have been working on Joint Working Group meetings, military-to-military exchanges, high-level visits, capacity building and training programmes and bilateral exercises.

Ministers will review the bilateral defence cooperation and will explore new initiatives to strengthen bilateral engagements further. The two leaders will also exchange views on regional and global issues of shared interest, according to the ministry.