Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will hold bilateral talks with Boris Pistorius, German Federal Minister of Defence in Delhi on Tuesday. This comes just a day after Singh had a meeting with US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin. Pistorius, who arrived from Indonesia on June 5, is on a four-day visit to India. Pistorius and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s talks will be wide-ranging on Tuesday and the focus of the discussions is likely to be on expanding bilateral defence industrial cooperation.
Apart from his meeting with Singh, Pistorius is likely to meet a few defence start-ups during an event organised by Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) in New Delhi.
It is expected that India’s plan to procure six stealth conventional submarines at a cost of around Rs 43,000 crore will figure in the talks as one of the contenders of the contract is Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS).
“It is not up to Germany to change that on our own,” Pistorius told German state-owned broadcaster DW during an interview, according to PTI, while replying to a question on India’s dependence on Russian weaponry.
“This is an issue we have to solve jointly with other partners. But of course, we can’t have an interest in the long run that India is so dependent on Russia’s delivery of weapons or other materials,” he said.
He said that he wanted to send a signal that Germany is willing to support partners, our reliable partners like Indonesia, like India. “And that includes, for example, the possibility of delivering submarines,” Pistorius added without elaborating.
In June 2021, the defence ministry had cleared the mega project to domestically build six conventional submarines for the Indian Navy at a cost of around Rs 43,000 crore, reported PTI.
The submarines will be built under the much-talked-about strategic partnership model that allows domestic defence manufacturers to join hands with leading foreign defence majors to produce high-end military platforms to reduce import dependence.
Boris Pistorius is also scheduled to visit Mumbai where he is likely to visit Western Naval Command headquarters and Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited, according to a Ministry of Defence press release.
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