No site inspection of US military equipment imported to India

United States and India are in talks to join forces on a missile defense system which may ignite arm race to Asian region especially with China.Few call it trapping China at time when China looks for space global order and is resolving border disputes with his neighbor countries and is at its economy boom at take off stage.

India has told the US that it is uncomfortable with the idea of on-site inspection of US military equipment imported for Indian armed forces.

Defence minister A.K. Antony is said to have told visiting US defence secretary Robert Gates that the two sides needed to work around laws that require such physical checks, a highly placed defence ministry source said here today.

Under US law, military equipment transferred to another country has to be verified periodically for assurance of legitimate use. In simple terms, the US would want to ensure that equipment it sells to India is not re-sold or moved to a country like Myanmar on which it has imposed sanctions. India has re-sold British-origin maritime aircraft to Myanmar in the past.

But these hitches would not be allowed to tell on military-to-military relations that both sides concluded were intensifying “satisfactorily”.

“We want to make it clear that there are no hard-line positions. Both sides are willing to meet more than half-way to resolve the issues,” the defence ministry official said.

US and Indian Defence Ministry officials said "increase in military cooperation and trade" was on the cards. With an eye on the ever increasing Indian weapons shopping list estimated to touch 5 to 8 Billion dollars a year shortly, Gates said US wanted to increase its weapons sales to India.

US and Indian Defence Ministry officials said "increase in military cooperation and trade" was on the cards. With an eye on the ever increasing Indian weapons shopping list estimated to touch 5 to 8 Billion dollars a year shortly, Gates said US wanted to increase its weapons sales to India. Major US armament makers Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing jointly lead the American missile programme and have made a number of presentations to India on their PAC-III anti missile system as well as warship borne Aegis system.Noting that India needed an anti-missile defence, the US today talked about the possibility of cooperation in developing such a shield.

"We understand India's needs for an anti-missile shield," visiting Defence Secretary Robert Gates told reporters here as he held talks with his counterpart A K Antony. Stressing that perhaps a joint analysis could be carried out, he said the two countries were just beginning to talk on what India needs would be in the realm of missile defence and "where cooperation between us might help advance that". Nudging India to conclude the civil nuclear deal at the earliest, the US today said "the clock is ticking" and there is an "open question" on whether the Congress will be able to take it up "beyond this summer and September".

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates also made it clear that his country was eyeing Indian defence contracts worth billions of dollars, saying Washington wanted to have a "place at the table" when New Delhi procures weapon systems.

"The clock is ticking in terms of how much time is available to get all the differnt aspects of an agreement implemented," he told reporters here just before winding up his two-day visit.

Gates did not specify any time period by which India needed to take the steps like firming up the IAEA safeguards and seeking waiver from Nuclear Suppliers Group.

He, however, made the deadline clear as he said: "with this being an election year, there is an open question about how long the Senate will be in session beyond this summer and September.

After the India-IAEA Safeguards Agreement and waiver from NSG, the nuclear agreement has to go back to the US Congress for another vote.

Without directly mentioning the stiff opposition by Left parties to operationalization of the nuclear deal, he said the US respects India's internal politics and hopes that the government would resolve the issue in time.

The US Defence Secretary also met senior BJP leader L K Advani, whose party is also opposing the deal, in an apparent bid to seek his support.