India, Greece Look To Firm Up Key Pact And Boost Ties

India and Greece on Wednesday agreed to bolster cooperation in areas ranging from defence manufacturing to trade and connectivity and to speedily finalise a migration and mobility pact as Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with his visiting Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

- Rezaul H Laskar

Mitsotakis is the first Greek premier to travel to India in 16 years, and his trip is a follow-up to Modi's visit to Athens last August, the first by an Indian premier in four decades. At the time, the two sides upgraded their ties to a strategic partnership and Wednesday's discussions provided the leaders an opportunity to assess the progress made since then.

Pointing to opportunities created by India's efforts to jointly develop and produce military hardware, Modi said the two countries agreed to link their defence industries. "We discussed concluding the migration and mobility partnership agreement between the two countries as soon as possible," he said.

Mitsotakis said the mobility pact will be a key step towards strengthening cooperation on legal migration, fighting human trafficking and offering young Indians an opportunity to work in Greece.

He described India as one of the "main pillars of stability and security" in the Indo-Pacific and pushed for the two sides to double their trade-currently worth about $2 billion-before the target year of 2030. The oldest and largest democracies share the mutual political will to establish partnerships and create new synergies, he said.