Israeli Navy chief inspects guard of honour, meets his Indian counterpart

New Delhi, Jan 19 (ANI): Israeli Navy chief Vice-Admiral Eliezer Marom inspected a guard of honour in New Delhi on Tuesday and later met Indian Navy chief Admiral Nirmal Verma, with the aim of expanding strategic-military ties between the two nations.

Vice-Admiral Marom is slated to hold wide-ranging talks in the next few days for expanding strategic military ties.

The Israeli Navy chief is also expected to hold discussions with Defence Minister A.K Antony, Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor and Air Chief Marshal PV Naik.

During his visit, Vice-Admiral Marom will also visit the South-Western Army Command in Jaipur and the Western Naval Command in Mumbai.

Israel is eager to sell more and more military hardware and software to India.

Israel, on its part, is already the second largest defence supplier to India after Russia, with New Delhi having done military business worth around $9 billion with Tel Aviv since the 1999 Kargil conflict.

The focus in Indo-Israeli military partnership is now on having more joint R and D projects, with New Delhi keen to ensure that the ongoing ones fructify within specified timeframes.

The Rs 2,606 crore project between DRDO and Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) to develop a supersonic 70-km range Barak-NG (next generation) missile defence system for Indian Navy, for instance, is slated for completion by May 2011.

IAF, too, wants to induct nine air defence squadrons under the mammoth Rs 10,075 crore DRDO-IAI project to develop a medium-range surface-to-air missile (MR-SAM) system, capable of detecting and destroying hostile aircraft at a 80-km range, at the earliest. (ANI)