India and Morocco agreed to enhance bilateral cooperation in the field of defence and security

Moroccan Defence Minister Abdeltif Loudyi on Tuesday met Defence Minister Nirmala Sitaraman in South Block in New Delhi to enhance bilateral cooperation between both the countries.

During the meeting, both Ministers agreed to enhance bilateral cooperation in the field of defence and security. The Minister identified fields of Hydrography, Peacekeeping, Telemedicine, Information Technology and Communications as well as Counter Terrorism and Counter Insurgency as potential areas for bilateral engagement.

Cooperation on defence industry, including collaboration in Ship Building and manufacturing support were also discussed.

Two bilateral MoUs,  ‘Cooperation in Peaceful Uses of Outer Space’ between ISRO and the Moroccan Centre of Remote Sensing and ‘Cooperation in the area of Cyber Security’ between the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT –IN), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Moroccan Computer Response Team (ma-CERT) were signed in the presence of both Defence Ministers.

The Moroccan delegation will also visit and interact with Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) facilities at Bengaluru as part of programme for their two day official visit.

Nirmala Sitaraman also invited the Moroccan Defence Minister to attend Aero India 2019 to be held in Bengaluru in February 2019.