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India, SA to sign defence pact: PTI

The agreement will be signed by Defence Minister George Fernandes and his South African counterpart M G P Lekota, after extensive talks in Johannesburg.

Fernandes is on a three-day official visit to the country, heading a high-level eight-member defence delegation.

The agreement, Indian officials said, will attempt to institutionalise major area of co-operation such as regular dialogue on defence particularly on security issues, co-operation in defence, science and technology and exchange of training programmes for military and medical personnel.

The new agreement will be a follow-up of a memorandum of understanding signed between the two countries in 1996 under which India went in for huge purchases of Bofors guns ammunition, specially after the Kargil operations, as also mine-proof armoured cars for use in anti insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir.

"The new agreement," Indian officials said, "is broader in scope and would further extend bilateral defence co-operation".

The delegation includes defence secretary T R Prasad, additional secretary, defence production, Dhrindera Singh, deputy chief of army staff, Lt Gen S S Mehta and deputy chief of naval staff vice admiral Harinder Singh.

Besides talks in the South African capital, Fernandes will visit Cape Town and Durban.

The highlight of his visit will be a trip to the historic Pietermaritzburg railway station, where Mahatma Gandhi was thrown out of a first class compartment on racial grounds.

Fernandes will also meet prominent members of the South African Indian community in Kwazulu Natal.

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