India, Israel discuss terrorism, intelligence, defence trade

New Delhi, Dec 22 (PTI) India and Israel Tuesday
achieved convergence of views on defence and security issues
such as counter-terrorism, intelligence sharing, military
cooperation, weapons trade, and joint research and development
at a day long meeting here.

The exchange of concerns and agreement on various defence
issues took place at a Joint Working Group (JWG) meeting
co-chaired by Indian Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar and
Israeli Defence Ministry Director General retired Brig Gen
Pinchas Buchris, officials said here.
India, incidentally, is Israel's biggest weapons customer
and both countries have an expanding military relations, as
Tel Aviv is the second largest defence supplier, after Russia,
to New Delhi last year with nearly USD 9 billion trade since
the 1999 Indo-Pak Kargil war.
During the talks, the two sides focused on cooperation in
counter-terrorism and intelligence sharing, apart from
military trade," a defence ministry official said.
New Delhi and Tel Aviv have all along shied away from
talking about their defence relations in public, mostly due to
political sensitivities in India.
Despite several allegations of kickbacks and Israeli
companies being blacklisted by Indian Defence Ministry, the
two countries have went on to sign contracts for joint design,
development and production of arms and weapon systems,
including the recent Medium Range Surface-to-Air Missile
(MR-SAM) in February this year. (MORE) PTI NCB
ANU


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