New Delhi

India and Italy are likely to discuss in detail the bilateral defence cooperation as part of the formal agenda of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's visit to India this month, reports said. Meloni is the chief guest at the Raisina Dialogue conference on March 2 in New Delhi. Meloni's India visit will entail a series of high-profile meetings, including with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The reports delving into India-Italy defence cooperation emerge less than a week after India's defence minister Rajnath Singh held talks with Italian State Secretary for Defence Matteo Perego Di Cremnago in Bengaluru on the sidelines of the Aero India show, the first such visit in several years.

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"A general agreement on bilateral cooperation in the defence sector [is being discussed]," The Hindu newspaper cited a diplomatic source as saying. The source cited by the paper added that if the talks do not conclude during Meloni’s visit in March, the agreement will be ready for signing during her next visit to India in September for the G-20 summit.

Giorgia Meloni will be the third Italian Prime Minister to visit India in the last ten years after Paolo Gentiloni in 2017, and Giuseppe Conte in 2018.

India-Italy ties: A difficult recent past embedded in an honoured history

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India-Italy ties nosedived significantly during 2012-2015 over the arrest of two Italian marines for the killing of two Kerala fishermen off the Indian coast. Rome also vetoed New Delhi's bid to join the Missile Technology Control Regime shortly after.

However, the last few years have seen a continuous effort being made by the two sides to put the ghosts of a difficult recent past behind them. In the case of the Italian marines, the Modi government decided to send the marines back to Italy. The case was resolved mutually at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which said that the marines had immunity when they shot at the Indian fishermen and were not under Indian jurisdiction. India chose not to appeal the verdict.

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In November 2021, India's defence ministry lifted the ban on Italian defence firm Leonardo involved in the Augusta Westland VVIP helicopter deal. 

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But the ties between the two countries run deeper than bilateral defence deals and the scandalous allegations of corruption which followed them. During the Second World War, a total of 5782 Indian soldiers laid their lives in Italy while fighting the Hitler-Mussolini military alliance in the region. The Indian soldiers are buried in over 40 cemeteries in Italy, with the major ones being at Cassino, Arezzo, Florence, Forlì, Sangro River and Rimini.

India and Italy also have a Military Cooperation Group (MCG), a forum established to encourage defence cooperation between the two countries through regular talks held between various defence headquarters of the two countries. The 11th MCG meeting was held in June 2022 in New Delhi.

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