Our relations with India are relations that can be a great opportunity for Greece. A great opportunity on a bilateral level, to exchange experiences, but also to help Indian companies to come and invest in Greece and to enable us to jointly create innovative products. But also an opportunity to bring together the two environments, the startups and the innovation ecosystem.

This was stressed by National Defence Minister Nikos Dendias today, Monday, February 9, after his one-on-one meeting with India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi, concluding his official visit to the Asian country.

After the meeting, extended talks were held with the participation of the Defence Ministers of the two countries and their Delegations.

Speaking about the visit to India, Dendias said, among other things, that he had the opportunity to meet Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and visited “companies and the country’s innovation ecosystem”.

He stressed that he came “in touch with the way they think, the way they are developing and reforming their Armed Forces.”

On the meeting with India’s Defence Minister, Dendias explained that they had “a deep and frank exchange of views.”

And he elaborated: “India as a country presents a huge interest. For Greece to have a close contact with a country of one billion four hundred million people, with an Armed Forces of almost 1.5 million, is something extremely important. We also share systems. The Indian Air Force also has Rafale, as do we.”

Dendias also stressed that he signed an agreement with his Indian counterpart on “our cooperation on defence industry issues”, explaining that “this is the first of a series of agreements we are negotiating.”

In his remarks, Dendias said: “The relationship with India is a strategic one. India’s relationship with India is a strategic relationship. A relationship, which I think can change to a large extent the reality of the economic facts between the two countries.”

The Defence Minister also visited the Defence Production Centre of the Indian Ministry of Defence in New Delhi today, where he attended presentations on the prospects for cooperation in defence innovation and technology.

In attendance were the Chief Executive Officers, Managing Directors, General Managers and Chief Development Officers from India’s Public Sector Defence Enterprises, as well as members of private innovation firms.

During the meeting at the Defence Production Centre of the Ministry of Defence of India, Mr. Dendias referred to the reform of the Greek Armed Forces with the “Agenda 2030”, as well as the new phase of Greece’s relations with India, which he initiated during his tenure as Foreign Minister of the Government of Greece, with the then and current Foreign Minister of India, Dr. Jaishankar.

On the “Agenda 2030”, Dendias also referred to the “Achilles’ Shield”, a five-layer “shield” covering our country against all potential threats (space, cyberspace, airspace, land, sea and below sea level).

The Greek minister stressed, among other things, the importance of communication between major companies and the defence ecosystems of the two countries – as well as between start-ups in Greece and India – and the encouragement of the creation of a forum through which this communication will take place.

He also referred to the potential synergies that exist between the ecosystems and the need to create a permanent mechanism for contacts and exercises between the Armed Forces of the two countries.

Afterwards, Mr. Dendias visited the National Gallery of Modern Art and the exhibition “Gikas: A Journey to India”, on the great Greek painter Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Gikas, and went to the National Memorial of the Fallen of India, where he laid a wreath.

Yesterday, Sunday, February 8, the Defence Minister travelled to Bangalore, India, where he had the opportunity to be hosted at defence facilities and learn about India’s innovation ecosystem.

Dendias visited state-owned and leading private companies active in the field of defence innovation and cutting-edge technology development and attended presentations and instrumentation demonstrations.