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India, Germany to hold strategic dialogue

Amit Baruah

Pranab Mukherjee signs agreement with German counterpart

BERLIN: India and Germany have agreed to set up a strategic dialogue at the level of Defence Secretary/State Secretary of Defence and three sub-groups on strategic, defence and military-to-military cooperation.

The agreement was part of a large defence framework cooperation accord signed by visiting Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee with his German counterpart Franz Joseph Jung.

Talking to presspersons after the agreement was signed late on Wednesday night, Mr. Mukherjee said the two sides would set up a High Defence Committee comprising the Defence Secretary/State Secretary of Defence which would meet once a year, alternately in India and Germany.

Joint development

The Defence Minister hoped that the Indo-German equation would graduate from a buyer-seller relationship to one of co-production, joint development and transfer of technology.

Pointing out that Germany was India's sixth largest trade partner and sixth largest investor, Mr. Mukherjee said Berlin was a trusted and valued friend of India.

This defence cooperation agreement, which has been in the works since the early part of 2006, reflected an effort by both nations to take their cooperation beyond the economic sphere.

The agreement made a direct reference to the "importance of industrial and technological cooperation between both countries and of a bilateral dialogue on export control issues".

This reflected the interests and concerns of both countries. While India was keen on the acquisition of the latest defence technologies, Germany was concerned about export controls in such transfers.

On military-to-military cooperation, the defence cooperation agreement called for a strategic dialogue on a range of issues, which included military training, organisational structure of armed forces, maintenance of armed forces during peace time, military medicine, military geo-information affairs as well as disaster relief and humanitarian assistance.

Asked if India was interested in making any specific defence purchases from Germany, Mr. Mukherjee said the new agreement was a "platform" to drive new cooperation initiatives. The High Defence Committee would discuss all these matters, he added.

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