India and the United States have agreed in principle to establish a Indo-US Industrial Security Joint Working Group, the Defence Ministry said on Friday.
“This group will meet periodically to align the policies and procedures expeditiously that will allow the defence industries to collaborate on cutting edge defence technologies,” a Ministry statement stated. This was agreed during the Industrial Security Agreement summit held between the two sides from September 27 to October 1 in New Delhi.
The summit was organised to develop protocol for exchanging classified information between the defence industries of both the nations, the statement notedd. It was led by Designated Security Authorities (DSA) Anurag Bajpai and David Paul Bagnati from India and the U.S. respectively. The DSAs also visited Indian defence industry in preparation of a road map, the statement added.
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The Industrial Security Annex (ISA) was signed during the India-U.S. 2+2 ministerial dialogue in December 2019 and is meant to facilitate the exchange of classified information between the defence industries of both the countries.
The ISA is a part of the General Security Of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA), one of the foundational agreements, which India had signed with the U.S. many years ago.