Media Eye News Bureau: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Jordanian King Abdullah II held talks on important strategic issues along with the message that terrorism and radicalisation are not linked to any religion.
India and Jordan have decided to step up defence cooperation in order to combat terror and prevent cyber security crimes. Both the leaders discussed a lot of issues ranging from Syrian refugees to Palestine and resolved to enhance cooperation in the economic sphere.
They addressed a conference on ‘Islamic Heritage: Promoting Understanding & Moderation’ where Narendra Modi said, “The action against terrorism and radicalisation is not against religion. It is against the mindset that misleads our youth to inflict atrocities against innocents”. The Jordanian king asserted that the present global war against terror is not a fight between different religions.
The two countries signed 12 agreements, covering a wide range of areas including defence, health and medicine, setting up of the next generation Centre of Excellence (COE) in Jordan, long term supply of rock phosphate and fertiliser and setting up of setting up of a Hindi Chair at the Jordan University.
Defence cooperation was a key element of the visit, that envisages to promote cooperation by specifying the scope of such cooperation and making provisions for implementation of the cooperation in some of the recognised areas like training; defence industry; counter-terrorism; military studies; cyber security; military medical services, peace-keeping etc.
T S Tirumurti, secretary (economic relations) in the external affairs ministry said, “There is keenness on both sides to take this cooperation further. We are in process of exploring our cooperation. We are also looking at closer security cooperation, keeping in mind the tremendous experience Jordan has in the region”.
He further said that the Jordanian king also visited the National Security Guard (NSG) campus, where he was given a demonstration of the fighting squad's capability and was highly impressed with the counter-terrorism capabilities of the NSG.
