New Delhi Jun 03 :- India and Israel agreed to deepen defence ties as Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Benjamin Gantz met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and held bilateral talks with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi Thursday.
On his first official visit to India, Gantz told Modi, “We have a great opportunity to deepen defence cooperation between our countries and to build on our shared values in order to contribute to global stability.”
He said India is an “industrial superpower and Israel is a technological superpower — cooperation between our countries will expand the capabilities of both countries to contend with developing challenges.”
The visit marks 30 years of diplomatic ties between the two countries. Israel is among the top exporters of arms to India – together with Russia, France and the United States — and India has bought weapons worth US$ 2.9 billion from Israel in the last decade. The main purchases include missiles, radars and UAVs.
Gantz also met National Security Advisor Ajit Doval during the day.
In his meeting with Modi, he emphasised the need to invest further in defence cooperation between the two countries, while building on shared values to contribute to global stability.
The Prime Minister’s Office, in a statement, said the two leaders “reviewed the rapid growth in defence cooperation between India and Israel over the past few years,” and Modi “encouraged Israeli defence companies to benefit from opportunities of co-development and co-production in India.”
Earlier in the day, Gantz held discussions with Singh on deepening defence ties. The two sides adopted the India-Israel Vision on Defence Cooperation with the “intention to further strengthen the existing framework of the Indo-Israeli defence cooperation architecture,” the Ministry of Defence said in a statement.
The two ministers exchanged a Letter of Intent on enhancing cooperation in the field of futuristic defence technologies.
“A wide range of issues concerning bilateral, regional and defence industrial cooperation were discussed during the meeting. The two ministers reviewed the existing military-to-military activities which have increased” despite the Covid-19 challenges and “discussed ways to increase cooperation in all domains with a focus on Research and Development in future technologies and defence co-production,” the Ministry said.
Singh and Gantz acknowledged mutual security challenges and their convergences on a number of strategic and defence issues, and expressed their commitment to work together to enhance cooperation in all forums.
Gantz is visiting with an “aim to strengthen defence ties between the two countries,” the Ministry said, adding that “defence cooperation has been one of the significant pillars of bilateral cooperation.”
Gantz’s office, in a statement, said both India and Israel “reiterated their commitment to deepening and expanding defence cooperation by presenting a vision for future collaboration, outlined in a joint declaration.”
The discussions between the two leaders “covered topics including strategic global challenges, military cooperation, defence industrial cooperation and joint R&D” and a cooperation agreement signed between DRDO and Israel’s Directorate for Defense R&D “which will enable the expansion of technological collaboration and development between the countries.”
