NEW DELHI: Russia yesterday offered its former Cold War ally India the chance to jointly develop weapon systems in a bid to remain New Delhi’s main provider of arms.
With India increasingly looking elsewhere for its armament needs, visiting Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov presented a deal in which India would develop military hardware alongside Russia, rather than buying it.
“Particular attention in this new program will be paid to scientific research and joint development and construction,” Serdyukov told reporters after talks with his Indian counterpart A.K. Antony.
“In this agreement, concrete steps will be undertaken to achieve transition relations from vendor and buyer to partnership,” Serdyukov said.
India and Russia decided to extend their military cooperation for another 10 years beyond 2010 and set up an apex body to give “proper focus” to the various working groups dealing with different defense-related issues.
“I am happy to say that we have taken a decision in principle to extend our military cooperation by another 10 years beyond 2010,” Antony said. “We are taking our relationship forward from that of a vendor-seller to areas of design, development, co-production and co-marketing of military hardware. Both of us want to strengthen our relationship to make it more dynamic and to expand to more areas,” Antony said.
The decisions were taken at the eighth meeting here of the India Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC) on contentious issues relating to two big ticket military deals the two countries have inked.
Russia accounts for 70 percent of Indian military equipment, but late deliveries and commercial disagreements have pushed New Delhi toward other suppliers, including the United States, France, Britain and Israel.
In 2005, India signed a 10-year defense pact with the United States in “a clear indication that New Delhi is planning to broaden the base of its defense procurements,” said analyst C. Uday Bhaskar.
In March this year, New Delhi said it planned to buy six Hercules transport planes from Lockheed Martin for nearly one billion dollars, marking the country’s biggest military aircraft deal with the United States.
Though India’s defense budget is just 2.3 percent of its gross domestic product, the country is one of the world’s top buyers of military hardware.
