US offers to sell India advanced weaponry
US offers to sell India advanced weaponry
We intend to redraw the strategic map of Indo-US relations, say top US officials g Natwar to visit Washington on 12th
By Iftikhar Gilani
NEW DELHI: The United States has offered India an assortment of advanced weapons to balance its decision to sell F-16 fighter aircrafts to Pakistan. The weaponry offered includes Patriot PaC II anti-missile systems, network-centric early warning and battlefield control and command systems.
During US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s visit here last month, the two sides agreed to consolidate defence and energy ties and conclude the second phase of the Next Step in Strategic Partnership (NSSP), which encompasses high technology trade.
“We intend to re-draw the strategic map of Indo-US relations,” said senior US Embassy officials, adding that the two countries would engage more closely in the coming weeks. External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh will visit Washington on April 12, which will be followed by US Pacific Command Commander-in-Chief Admiral William J Fallone’s first visit here.
A high-level US delegation visited India recently and made presentations about the Patriot PaC II systems to Indian defence officials, which was a follow-up of three Indian observers attending the missile shield system’s live demonstration trials in Texas, said officials.
The officials said US aviation majors Lockheed Martin and Boeing would bid for India’s plan to buy 126 multi-role combat aircraft and were hopeful of getting the contract. They said that US armed forces had proposed to give a new dimension to military-to-military engagements between the two countries by company-level joint exercises in California in June and taking these manoeuvres to battalion-level first and then to brigade-level by 2007.
Indian Air Force’s wish to engage in joint manoeuvres with F-16s and early warning aircraft would be realised soon, said US officials, referring to the planned joint exercises in November over the Kalaikunda base in West Bengal.
Asserting the US was committed to “serious energy dialogue” with India, including on civilian use of nuclear energy, the officials said this issue would be boosted with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyer’s upcoming visit to Washington. “India and US are both energy deficit countries and a close cooperation in this field is viewed by us as mutually advantageous,” they said.
Declaring that US viewed its strategic engagement with India in a global rather than regional context, US officials said an indication of this was that defence sales between the two countries had shot up to 200 million US dollars in 2002 from zero in 2000.
Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran will accompany Natwar on his visit.
His delegation includes Department of Atomic Energy’s Strategic Planning Group Director RB Grover, Indian Space Research Organisation Scientific Secretary V Sundararamaiah and External Affairs Ministry Joint Secretary (Americas) S Jaishankar.
We intend to redraw the strategic map of Indo-US relations, say top US officials g Natwar to visit Washington on 12th
By Iftikhar Gilani
NEW DELHI: The United States has offered India an assortment of advanced weapons to balance its decision to sell F-16 fighter aircrafts to Pakistan. The weaponry offered includes Patriot PaC II anti-missile systems, network-centric early warning and battlefield control and command systems.
During US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s visit here last month, the two sides agreed to consolidate defence and energy ties and conclude the second phase of the Next Step in Strategic Partnership (NSSP), which encompasses high technology trade.
“We intend to re-draw the strategic map of Indo-US relations,” said senior US Embassy officials, adding that the two countries would engage more closely in the coming weeks. External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh will visit Washington on April 12, which will be followed by US Pacific Command Commander-in-Chief Admiral William J Fallone’s first visit here.
A high-level US delegation visited India recently and made presentations about the Patriot PaC II systems to Indian defence officials, which was a follow-up of three Indian observers attending the missile shield system’s live demonstration trials in Texas, said officials.
The officials said US aviation majors Lockheed Martin and Boeing would bid for India’s plan to buy 126 multi-role combat aircraft and were hopeful of getting the contract. They said that US armed forces had proposed to give a new dimension to military-to-military engagements between the two countries by company-level joint exercises in California in June and taking these manoeuvres to battalion-level first and then to brigade-level by 2007.
Indian Air Force’s wish to engage in joint manoeuvres with F-16s and early warning aircraft would be realised soon, said US officials, referring to the planned joint exercises in November over the Kalaikunda base in West Bengal.
Asserting the US was committed to “serious energy dialogue” with India, including on civilian use of nuclear energy, the officials said this issue would be boosted with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyer’s upcoming visit to Washington. “India and US are both energy deficit countries and a close cooperation in this field is viewed by us as mutually advantageous,” they said.
Declaring that US viewed its strategic engagement with India in a global rather than regional context, US officials said an indication of this was that defence sales between the two countries had shot up to 200 million US dollars in 2002 from zero in 2000.
Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran will accompany Natwar on his visit.
His delegation includes Department of Atomic Energy’s Strategic Planning Group Director RB Grover, Indian Space Research Organisation Scientific Secretary V Sundararamaiah and External Affairs Ministry Joint Secretary (Americas) S Jaishankar.
posted by India News Watch at 4:08 PM
<< Home