Article Posted on : - Jul 02, 2014

NEW DELHI (PTI): Military deals including a key missile development programme and procurement of two more AWACS aircraft are understood to have been discussed between India and Israel during Defence Secretary R K Mathur's ongoing three-day visit to Tel Aviv.

Mathur is leading a defence delegation to Israel to review the ongoing and future joint defence cooperation projects between the two countries in the meeting of the Joint Working Group there, defence ministry sources said here.

The two sides have close defence ties and Israel is one of the largest weapons suppliers to India after Russia and has provided it with sophisticated systems such as the long-range radars for the anti-ballistic missile defence system and the Airborne Early Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) aircraft.

The Long Range-Surface to Air Missile (LR-SAM) project being jointly developed by the DRDO and the Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI) has been delayed by several years due to some reasons and its status is understood to have been discussed by the two sides.

IAF's plans to buy two more Israeli-made radars for its AWACS programme is also understood to have been discussed by the two sides during the meeting.

The Israeli side has also been pushing India to go for procuring its Iron Dome air defence system for protection against threats from short range projectiles including rockets and small range missiles.

A number of DRDO projects are also going on between India and Israel, in which critical components are provided by the Israeli firms.