Need to engage in Malabar level exercise with India: US

WASHINGTON: The US Navy has expressed willingness to engage in Malabar-level naval exercises with India to improve communications and inter-operability between the two forces.

"We need to improve our communications and our interoperability. Currently we do exercise with the Indian navy. It's a lot of humanitarian assistance, search-and- rescue, medical," Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Jonathan Greenert said.

"We were doing very, very comprehensive events in an exercise called Malabar, which is an annual exercise we have with the Indian navy. We were doing carrier operations together, very complex, integrating air wings. And I think it would be great if we could get back to that level," he said.

Greenert said the Asia-Pacific rebalance is a broad effort and noted sea power is going to underwrite it.

"Now we're a Pacific nation. We're tied to geography, to the Pacific. We're tied to trade. We're tied to allies," he said.

In addition to building strategic relationship with India, he called for building a constructive relationship with China.