Fighter deal not to cloud Indo-US strategic ties: Blake

Lalit K Jha
Washington, Apr 30 (PTI) US on Saturday said that
strategic ties with India would not be overshadowed by
exclusion of two American companies from the Indian fighter
contract and the forthcoming bilateral defence dialogue
between the two nations would work on enhancing cooperation in
cutting edge technology.
Though voicing a "big disappointment" over two giant
American multinational companies – Boeing and Lockheed Martin
– being excluded from the USD 11 million Medium Multi-Role
Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) deal, the Assistant Secretary of State
for South and Central Asia, Robert Blake said the forthcoming
Indo-US strategic dialogue would go ahead in July.
Blake, Obama Administration's point man for South and
Central Asia, said the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
would head the US delegation and Washington was looking ahead
to a "significant cooperation between the two nations in
frontiers of defence technology".
Initially the key meeting was slated for earlier this
year and was to be attended besides Clinton by the Defence
Secretary Robert Gates. The meeting was put off as the Indian
Defence Minister A K Antony was busy with his home-state
(Kerala) elections.
On whether the new Defence Secretary Leon Panetta
would accompany the Secretary of State, Blake said US was keen
that the upcoming dialogue include both Secretary of State as
well as the Defence Secretary, but it depended on whether
Senate ratified the appointment till then.
This was the first attempt by US armament companies to
enter Indian fighter market and Blake said Washington had so
far not received detailed briefing on the technical parametres
for the rejection of the bids of Boeing and Lockheed Martin,
which were competing with "proven technology".
His remarks assume significance as US experts on South
Asian affairs have termed New Delhi's decision as
strategically short-sighted and the one which could give a
setback to the bilateral ties. Most of these experts had
strongly batted for stronger Indo-US ties.
"The decision will set the US-India relationship
back," said Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation.
"It will lead many in the US to conclude that India
has settled for a plane, not a relationship—and if that is the
case, it will raise questions about why the United States
should bend backwards to accommodate India," said Ashely
Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Blake, however, tended to disagree with such a view
point. "I will like to say that we are disappointed with the
decision but we remain committed to our defense partnership to
our wider strategic partnership," he said when asked about the
reaction from the eminent American think-tanks.
"Even in the defense area, we are still doing quite a
lot. I don't want a have this kind decision in anyway
overshadow that. I think that for example we (India and the
United States) continue to have a strong interest in promoting
global security and stability," he said.
"We will continue to persuade defense trade
cooperation and we are pleased that India has shown confidence
in American products such as C130J and the C17 and the P8
patrol aircraft and other platforms like that and obviously
quite a significant future contract is coming up well and we
are confident that American companies will be competitive in
those as well," he said.
"So again we were disappointed but we also want to
continue to try to expand our cooperation not only in defense
area but more broadly," Blake said.
Responding to a question about the development of
India-US relationship after the visit of the US President,
Barack Obama, in November last, Blake said he thinks that
there is still a very wide scope of activity that is occurring
between the United States and India.
"On the counter terrorism front for example, I think,
there been very good cooperation on post Mumbai attack
investigations... our providing access to David Headley (the
Mumbai terror suspect).
"We are continuing our close collaborations to prevent
further terrorist attacks and we look very much forward to the
homeland security dialogue will be occurring later this spring
or early summer," he said.
"On the business side of course I think our business
ties are booming. Exports in 2010 grew by 17 per cent. Our
service export as well is growing very very fast.
"Commerce mission went out in April Mumbai, Hyderabad
and Delhi to look at franchising opportunities which are huge
opportunities in India," he said.
"On Afghanistan we just had our Special Representative
for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador (Mark) Grossman, who
is visiting India right now to consult with Mr (Shivshankar)
Menon (the National Security Advisor), the Foreign Secretary
(Nirupama) Rao and India's Special Envoy Ambassador Lamba," he
said.
"We had very good consultation on Asia. And we have
agreement to hold the trilateral US, Japan, India dialogue
later this year. We are moving ahead on lots of our food
security projects in Africa.
"So again I think there is a very wide scope of
cooperation that is taking place and we expect that continue
and the strategic dialogue will provide very good opportunity
to not only review those but look at the way forward and other
areas," Blake said.