Indian Army Chief General MM Naravane to embark on maiden Israel visit

New Delhi: Aimed at enhancing military cooperation, Indian Army Chief General MM Naravane will embark on his maiden visit to Israel on Monday.

During the five-day visit from Monday to Friday, Gen Naravane is slated to meet senior Israeli military and civilian leadership during which he will discuss avenues for further enhancing the Indo-Israel defence relations, according a statement issued by the Indian Army.

The Army Chief will take forward the excellent bilateral defence cooperation between Israel and India through multiple meetings with senior officials of the security establishment and exchange views on various defence related issues.

He will also interact with the Service Chiefs and visit the Headquarters of the Ground Forces element of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

In the last two months, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar separately visited Israel to strengthen defence cooperation.

During the Defence Secretary's visit, the two nations had decided to form a Task Force to formulate a comprehensive 10-year roadmap to identify new areas of defence cooperation.

The decision came during tthe 15th meeting of the India-Israel Joint Working Group (JWG) on bilateral defence cooperation held in Tel Aviv, Israel.

The meeting was co-chaired by Kumar and the Director-General of Israel's Ministry of Defence, Maj Gen (Retd) Amir Eshel.

The JWG is the apex body between the Ministry of Defence of India and Israel's Ministry of Defence to comprehensively review and guide all aspects of Bilateral Defence Cooperation.