India, Israel agree to form task force to identify new areas of defence cooperation

New Delhi: India-Israel Joint Working Group on Bilateral Defence Cooperation has agreed to form a Task Force to formulate a comprehensive Ten-Year Roadmap to identify new areas of cooperation.  This was decided at the 15th Joint Working Group meeting held on Wednesday in Tel Aviv, Israel.   The meeting was co-chaired by Defence Secretary Dr Ajay Kumar and the Director General of the Israel’s Ministry of Defence, Major General (Retd) Amir Eshel.

The Joint Working Group is the apex body between the Ministry of Defence of India and Israel’s Ministry of Defence to comprehensively review and guide all aspects of Bilateral Defence Cooperation.

The two sides reviewed the progress made in Military to Military engagements



including exercises and industry cooperation. The Co-chairs were also apprised of the progress made by the Sub Working Groups on Defence Procurement and Production and Research and Development.

It was also decided to form a Sub Working Groups on Defence Industry Cooperation and in this regard a Terms of Reference was signed between the two sides.  The formation of this Sub Working Groups would enable efficient utilisation of bilateral resources, effective flow of technologies and sharing industrial capabilities. It was also decided to schedule the Service level Staff talks in a specific time frame.

It was agreed to hold the next Joint Working Group in India on mutually convenient dates.