AWACS, Missile Top Indo-Israel Defence Talks

India and Israel is possibly discussing the military deals including a key missile development programme and procurement of two more AWACS aircraft 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, according to Press Trust of India (PTI).

Israel is one of the largest weapons suppliers to India after Russia and has supplied 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 during the meeting, according to the report.

The report added that 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.