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India and South Korea on Wednesday expanded their defence partnership with the signing of a series of agreements covering cyber security, military training, and UN peacekeeping cooperation, as Defence Minister Rajnath Singh held wide-ranging talks with his South Korean counterpart, Ahn Gyu-back, in Seoul.
The discussions reviewed the full spectrum of bilateral defence cooperation, including defence production, maritime security, logistics support, military exchanges, emerging technologies and regional security issues. Both sides also underlined the growing strategic convergence between India’s Act East Policy and South Korea’s regional vision for a free, open and rules-based Indo-Pacific.
Three Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) were signed during the visit, including agreements on defence cyber security cooperation, academic exchanges between India’s National Defence College and the Korea National Defence University, and collaboration in UN peacekeeping operations.
Singh also met South Korea’s Minister of Defence Acquisition Program Administration, Lee Yong-chul, with the two sides exploring ways to expand joint development, joint production and defence exports. Discussions were also held on advancing the India-Korea Defence Innovation Accelerator Ecosystem (KIND-X), which aims to link the innovation ecosystems of both countries.
Later in the day, the Indian Defence Minister chaired the India-Republic of Korea Defence Industry Business Roundtable, attended by senior officials and leading defence companies from both nations. The meeting focused on opportunities in defence manufacturing, co-development, supply chains and technology partnerships.
Addressing industry leaders, Singh pitched India as an emerging defence manufacturing hub and invited Korean firms to deepen partnerships with Indian companies, in line with the government’s push for indigenous defence production and exports.
“The success of India-Korea industrial cooperation in the commercial sector demonstrates the enormous potential of long-term trusted partnerships between the two countries. The time has now come to extend this successful model into the defence sector,” Singh said.
He said South Korea’s technological strengths, combined with India’s manufacturing scale, talent base and innovation ecosystem, offered a strong foundation for future collaboration in advanced defence technologies.
The Defence Minister noted that modern warfare increasingly depends on areas such as artificial intelligence, cyber technologies, autonomous systems, semiconductors, quantum technologies and space-based capabilities, adding that both countries have “enormous potential” to work together in these domains.
Highlighting India’s growing start-up and innovation ecosystem, Singh said Indian firms were making significant advances in unmanned systems, AI-enabled platforms, cyber security and defence software.
“The future of India-Korea defence cooperation lies in innovation-led collaboration,” he said.
During the business roundtable, two agreements were also signed between Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and South Korean defence major Hanwha Aerospace to boost cooperation in defence technology and industrial capacity building.
The agreements are expected to strengthen industry-level collaboration and further expand the strategic defence partnership between New Delhi and Seoul.
Team BharatShakti
