Washington upgrades ties with Delhi

Washington upgrades ties with Delhi

Washington upgrades ties with Delhi
By Ray Marcelo in New Delhi and Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad
Published: March 29 2005 01:56 | Last updated: March 29 2005 01:56

Washington has given its clearest support yet for New Delhi's ambitions to become a leading power by offering to sell India jet fighters, share civilian nuclear and space technology, and co-operate with energy policy.

The US measures, outlined at the weekend by India's foreign ministry, follow this month's visit to south Asia by Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, and represent a concrete package to “upgrade” blossoming ties between the countries.

“India is fast becoming a major world power and our interest is in helping to integrate that world power into the existing power structure in the world,” said Adam Ereli, US State Department deputy spokesman. US-India ties have been formalised through talks called “Next Steps in Strategic Partnership”, which enable the countries to sidestep disagreements following the sanctions that Washington imposed on India afterit successfully testednuclear weapons in 1998.

A key disagreement has been India's refusal to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. US law bans countries that have not signed the treaty from buying sensitive “dual use” technology that can be used for civilian and military purposes.

But analysts say the US's latest moves go beyond “Next Steps” by offering India access to nuclear power reactors ending the 30-year export ban on this technology and in effect showing Washington trusts India as a nuclear power.

Navtej Sarna, spokesman for India's foreign ministry, said it showed an “understanding of India's growing energy requirements”, in the lead-up to a joint “energy dialogue”.

This dialogue will almost certainly involve India's plans to build a controversial gas pipeline to Iran, via Pakistan. Ms Rice said the US opposed the pipeline because of the Bush administration's “well known” antagonism to Iran.

Mr Ereli said that, as part of a multibillion dollar upgrade of India's armed forces, US defence companies would be allowed to bid for 126 “multi-role combat aircraft”, a deal that for the first time would pit US companies against Russian, French and Swedish jet fighter makers. This follows the Bush administration's long-expected decision to sell F-16 fighter aircraft to Pakistan. Foreign diplomats say this deal, alongside the potential sale of F-16 and F-18 jets to India, represents a vigorous attempt by the US to break into the south Asian arms market.

It is understood the US offer to Pakistan includes the sale of at least 25 new F-16 C and D models, which are capable of deploying nuclear weapons, and upgrades for some 28 older model F-16s.

Pakistani officials estimate this deal could be worth up to $1bn (€770m, £535m) while a western diplomat in Islamabad said a US and India agreement could “go up to $4bn or $5bn”. But Pakistani officials say any agreement between Washington and New Delhi could harm longstanding defence ties between Russia and India.