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New Delhi: India and Belgium on Thursday (September 3) agreed to deepen defence cooperation, including joint development and production of military equipment, as prime minister Narendra Modi and his Belgian counterpart Bart De Wever sought to broaden a relationship traditionally centred on trade into a wider strategic partnership.

De Wever, who arrived in India on Wednesday (September 2) for the first visit by a Belgian prime minister in two decades, held talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Thursday.

“Defence and security cooperation is a key pillar of our relationship,” Modi said after the talks. “The agreements between our governments and defence industries will open up new opportunities for defence co-development and co-production.”

The two governments signed a Letter of Intent on defence cooperation, while India also announced the appointment of a resident defence attaché in Brussels, complementing Belgium’s defence attaché in New Delhi. A separate Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Belgian Security and Defence........

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