Korean soldiers to hone jungle warfare, counterinsurgency skills in India  

New Delhi. South Korea is looking forward to training its soldiers on jungle warfare and counterinsurgency techniques in India. It is likely to send its troops to Indian Army’s elite Counter Insurgency & Jungle Warfare (CIJW) School in the north-eastern state Mizoram.

The School also has a global imprint as soldiers and contingents of about 50 countries have undergone training here.

“India has the expertise in jungle warfare and counterinsurgency techniques on which we plan to train our forces at a bigger scale at the Counter Insurgency & Jungle Warfare (CIJW) School. At present only one officer from our country comes to take training at CIJW every year, but we want to send a bigger number of troops here in the near future,” Col. Lee In, Defense Attache, Embassy of the Republic of Korea (ROK) in India, told Asian Community News (ACN) Network.

Over the past few years, the CIJW School has carved a niche for itself as a world-class training establishment for imparting counter-terrorism training with state-of-the-art infrastructure and training facilities for combatants of the Army, Central Armed Police Forces, para-military forces and state police personnel of India.

According to Col. Lee, South Korea is looking forward to conducting joint exercises of the Indian-Korean naval forces in the Indian Ocean also.

This region which is of great strategic importance in the wake of Chinese intervention here.

“We have a small history of naval cooperation and we want to make it big. Korean navy cadets of Cruise Training Task Group had come to Mumbai and Chennai ports two years back in 2017, and that time we had had small combined exercise but we need to make it bigger exercise,” said Col.Lee adding that Indian ocean was very important for Korea also because it was an important route for the commercial ships making Indian and Korean navy combined exercise more vital for both the countries.

All set to make giant strides in the field of defense production sector as well, South Korea is going to play a very vital role in helping India manufacture military hardware such as artillery guns, anti-air missiles, machine guns, battle tanks and ships in time to come.

“Already, South Korea is producing the world’s best artillery gun K9 Vajra in India. Korean companies have also entered bidding for anti-air defense gun missile project. Also, the negotiations are underway for the main battle tank, machine guns, ships especially the minesweeper ships and Korean companies would go for bidding for such projects also,” said Col. Lee.

Last year the Korean Army chief and Defence Minister had visited India and discussed how to cooperate in the defense sector with prime focus on defense industry cooperation.

Col. Lee said, “In the 1970s, Korean couldn’t manufacture a piece of rifle and did not have the capability but now we manufacture the combat aircraft, ships, and artillery guns, pistol and rifles. It’s a great achievement in just 45 years. As regards India, we understand its defense needs. India is the country with the second highest defense requirements in the world. Korea will help India to realize the Make in India dream in defense sector too. Korean companies can make strategic partnership and manufacture products in India based on the technology transfer model.”