AMN / Tashkent
India and Uzbekistan have signed 3 MoUs in fields of Military Medicine and Military Education following a bilateral consultation between Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and his Uzbekistan counterpart Major General Bakhodir Nizamovich Kurbanov. Rajnath Singh is on a three-day visit to Tashkent from 1st of November.
The two sides concluded an MoU on cooperation in the field of Military Medicine between the Armed Forces of the two countries. In the coming days, the sides will continue discussions at the expert level to further enhance their exchanges in this sphere.
Two Institution-to-Institution MoUs on training and capacity building between institutes of higher military learning of the two countries were also signed. The MoU is a byproduct of interactions emanating from the MoU on Military Education signed between the two countries in October 2018.
The two defence ministers also witnessed the first-ever exchange over a video-link between College of Defence Management in Secunderabad and Armed Forces Academy of Uzbekistan in Tashkent.
Both leaders presided over the Curtain Raiser of the first-ever India-Uzbekistan Joint Exercise – Dustlik-2019 today.
During the meeting, the two sides expressed satisfaction at the enhanced level of defence engagements between India and Uzbekistan since the visit of the then Defence Minister of Uzbekistan to India in September 2018.
This enhanced level of engagement is reflected in the first-ever meeting of the JWG on Defence Cooperation in February this year, visit of Defence Secretary of India in March and the first-ever Defence-Industry Workshop organised in Tashkent in September.
An official release said New Delhi has offered a concessional line of credit of 40 million US dollars for the procurement of goods and services by Uzbekistan from India. The direct exchanges related to training, capacity building and education between the Armed Forces on both sides has also witnessed a significant upswing.
The defence ministers agreed that the two sides would continue to work together to further raise their level of engagement in the defence sphere in keeping with the strategic partnership between India and Uzbekistan. This would be based on the higher level of mutual trust and respect between the two countries and on their shared views and approaches on a range of regional and international issues, including promoting regional stability and security and combatting extremism and terrorism.
Mr Rajnath Singh invited Maj. Gen Kurbanov to visit India to continue the high-level political-military dialogue between India and Uzbekistan.