"The increasing strategic connections between the US and India should progress to closer military coordination and cooperation," Cohen said.
While upholding the right of nations to go in for pre-emptive strike to deal with terrorist threats, the former US Defence Secretary said this should be done after their was adequate intelligence on such threats.
The 2012 Republican presidential nominee and one of Trump's most vocal Republican Party critics during this year's election campaign, met privately with the President-elect for about an hour.
This visa issue had gotten so embarrassing that former Defence Secretary William Cohen, now a member of the US-India Business Council's board of directors, who was presiding along with Ambassador Nirupama Rao at the launch, had to prevail upon Secretary of State John F Kerry and get the visas okayed.