The UAE General in his meeting with India’s Defence Secretary also briefed about the 11th meeting of India-UAE Joint Defence Cooperation Committee (JDCC) held earlier.
In an effort to enhance Defence industry cooperation, India and UAE have agreed to identify new areas for setting up joint ventures. This was the outcome of the 11th India-UAE Joint Defence Cooperation Committee meeting that took place in New Delhi on Wednesday (May 25, 2022). The two sides also focussed on further expansion of scope and complexities of the existing joint exercises between the armed forces of both sides.
According to an official statement issued by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on May 25, the visiting Chief of the Force Development Authority at Ministry of Defence, UAE Major General Staff Hassan Mohamed Sultan Bani Hammad had a meeting with Defence Secretary Dr Ajay Kumar. The focus was on deepening defence cooperation between the two countries.
The UAE General in his meeting with India’s Defence Secretary also briefed about the 11th meeting of India-UAE Joint Defence Cooperation Committee (JDCC) held earlier.
The visiting delegation from UAE also met with Deputy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (Policy Planning and Force Development) Lt Gen Atulya Solankey at Headquarters, Integrated Defence Staff and later interacted with Indian defence Industries and also visited Bharat Electronics Limited, located in NCR.
Outcome of the JDCC
This meeting was co-chaired by Joint Secretary (Armed Forces) Dinesh Kumar and Chief of the Force Development Authority at Ministry of Defence, UAE.
The progress made in military-to-military engagements, joint exercises with the armed forces, R&D, Expert Exchanges, and deepening Industry Cooperation were all reviewed.
The next meeting of the JDCC is expected to be held in UAE in 2023 and the dates will be confirmed later. The Defence ministries of both countries through this body review and provide guidance in all aspects of bilateral defence cooperation.
Defence Relations between the two countries
The cooperation between the two countries has witnessed significant progress over the years and as has been reported by Financial Express Online earlier, the Gulf nation had helped in overflight of Rafales fighter jets from France to India. It had provided support by sending its own Airbus MRTT refuelling aircraft to support new Rafale fighters on their journey over 7,000-km flight from France to India.
In 2020 and 2021, former Army Chief Gen MM Naravane and the former Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Bhadauria had visited that country respectively.
In IDEX and NAVDEX 2021 India significant participation in both exhibitions based in Abu Dhabi. Also, IAF had participated in Dubai Air show in 2021, and for the fourth time in five years had participated in a major multinational air combat exercise in the UAE “Desert Flag’’.
BrahMos Missile & Akaash Missile.
As has been reported earlier, discussions related to the BrahMos Missile to the UAE is in advanced stages. This was among one of the first countries from the Gulf region to express interest in BrahMos and the indeginous Akaash Missile.
