India and Morocco discussed the entire range of bilateral ties and agreed to enhance co-operation in the field of defence and security during talks between visiting Minister Delegate to the Head of Government in charge of the National Defence Administration, Morocco, Abdeltif Loudyi and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman here on Tuesday.
The visiting dignitary is on a two-day official visit to India and this is the first ever visit by a Moroccan Defence Minister to India.
Giving details of the talks between the two Ministers, officials said the two sides 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 in defence industry, including collaboration in ship building and manufacturing support were also discussed. Sitharaman invited the Moroccan Minister to attend Aero India 2019 to be held in Bengaluru in February 2019.
Two bilateral memorandum of understanding(MOU) were also signed. They include ‘Cooperation in Peaceful Uses of Outer Space’ between Indian Space Research Organisation(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. The Moroccan delegation will also be visiting and interacting with Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) facilities at Bengaluru as part of programme for the visit, they said.