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.
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.