India and Saudi Arabia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on defence cooperation pact to take their strategic partnership further in areas of security on 26 February 2014.
The pact was signed between India and Saudi during the visit of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to India (from 26 to 28 February 2014) to discuss bilateral, regional and other issues of mutual interest.
The defence cooperation pact will allow exchange of defence-related information, military training and education as well as cooperation in areas varying from hydrography and security to logistics.
Background
A new era of Indo-Saudi ties started in 2006, when King Abduallah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud visited India, which was highest level political visit from Saudi Arabia to India. It is also called as Delhi Declaration.
In 2010 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Riyadh and decided to elevate the bilateral engagement to strategic partnership covering security, economic, defence and political areas called as Riyadh Declaration.
Saudi Arabia is India’s fourth largest trade partner and also the largest crude oil supplier has recorded bilateral trade at 43 billion US dollar in 2012-13.
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