Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday told the 13th ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) in Cebu, Philippines, that India is ready to share its battle-tested counter-terrorism expertise with ASEAN and its dialogue partners, PTI reported.
Source: PTI via The Hindu BusinessLine
“India's experience in the field of counter-terrorism is not limited to classroom learning or theoretical knowledge, rather it has been gained through decades of confronting cross-border security challenges on the ground. Every strategy we employ against terrorism has been tested and proven effective in real-world operations,” Singh said, according to ANI.
Source: ANI via LatestLY
Referring to Operation Sindoor, Singh said India had demonstrated a major example of its approach during the operation last year, when it destroyed a large number of terrorist infrastructure sites — a clear declaration, he said, of India's stance against state-sponsored terrorism, ANI reported. The Defence Ministry's statement described the doctrine as proactive and battle-tested, demonstrated when India dismantled terrorist infrastructure and enforced a non-negotiable red line against state-sponsored terror.
“India is fully prepared to share its practical and battle-tested counter-terrorism expertise with ADMM-Plus partners,” Singh said, according to PTI. “Through joint military exercises, capacity-building programmes, and robust intelligence sharing, we can further strengthen our collective capabilities,” he added.
Singh stressed that counter-terrorism remains an important area of cooperation under the ADMM-Plus framework, and that India and Malaysia are co-chairing the Experts' Working Group on Counter-Terrorism for the 2024 to 2027 cycle, the Defence Ministry statement said.
Maritime security and the Indo-Pacific
The defence minister also flagged concerns over disruptions in certain maritime trade routes and asserted that India will continue to act as a trusted net security provider in the Indian Ocean region and the wider Indo-Pacific, PTI reported. Merely issuing statements on maritime security is not enough when global trade routes face new types of threats, he told the conclave.
Singh said India supports an Indo-Pacific that is secure and resilient — open, inclusive and based on a rules-based international order — where peace and stability are the outcome of collective efforts, not merely aspirations, PTI and ANI reported. He said this year's meeting theme, “Navigating Our Future Together”, resonates with India's defence and foreign policies and is rooted in the civilisational ethos of “Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah”.
The Cebu address was the centrepiece speech of Singh's ADMM-Plus visit, during which he has also held bilateral meetings with his counterparts — Awaaz Punjab has reported those meetings separately. Thursday's speech placed India's operational counter-terrorism experience, rather than a new agreement, at the centre of its pitch for deeper regional security cooperation.