Terror focus at India-Israel meet

NEW DELHI: India and Israel will hold a joint working group (JWG) meeting on defence on Tuesday to review ongoing cooperation in military R&D projects, counter-terrorism and intelligence-sharing as well as chalk out new areas for collaboration.

The JWG will be co-chaired by the director-general of Israeli defence ministry Brigadier-General (retd) Pinchas Buchris and Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar, said officials.

Buchris also has meetings lined up with Defence Minister AK Antony, National Security Advisor MK Narayanan, Army chief General Deepak Kapoor, IAF chief Air Chief Marshal PV Naik and Navy chief Admiral Nirmal Verma, among others.

This comes shortly after Gen Kapoor visited Israel, which in turn was followed by a reciprocal visit here by Israeli Defence Forces chief of general staff Lt-General Gabi Ashkenazi.

As reported earlier, Israel has emerged as the second largest defence supplier to India, notching up military business worth a whopping $9 billion since the 1999 Kargil conflict, next only to Russia.

Despite allegations of kickbacks, India has pressed ahead with joint R&D projects with Israeli armament companies. Similarly, IAF wants to induct nine air defence squadrons under the mammoth Rs 10,075 crore DRDO-IAI project to develop a MR-SAM system, capable of detecting and destroying hostile aircraft.