US to scale up military interaction with India

Ahead of a meeting of top defence officials of India and the US in New Delhi on Thursday, a senior American general has said his country wants interaction between their armed forces to be scaled up to tactical and command post exercises.

"We have to build on the success of our joint exercises and... look at tactical and command post exercises," said Lt Gen Jeffrey Kohler, who heads the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

Such a move would take interaction between the militaries from "unit-to-unit exercises" to a more tactical level, which would be in line with the new US policy that sees New Delhi as a major strategic partner of Washington.

The two-day Defence Policy Group meeting, to be co-chaired by India's Defence Secretary Shekhar Dutt and US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edleman, will focus on issues like missile defence, strategic situation in the region and military-to-military contacts.

The US will make presentations to Indian officials on the situation in the area ranging from Middle East to Southeast Asia, with special focus on Central Asia and Afghanistan, Kohler said. "Sub-groups will discuss the situation in Nepal and Sri Lanka as well as Indonesia," he told reporters.

As India and the US share similar views on strategic issues, they could work as "parallel countries interested in solving problems," he said.

To set the stage for the DPG meeting, Kohler and S Banerjee, Director General of Acquisition in the defence ministry, co-chaired a meet of the Indo-US Defence Procurement and Production Group that took up issues of government-to- government sales of military hardware.

On the acquisition by the navy of the USS Trenton, an amphibious transport dock-class ship, Kohler said it would be transferred to India by January 17, 2007. Negotiations were still on for a linked deal for six UH-3H Sikorsky Sea King helicopters with an estimated price of Rs 300 crore, he said.

"We expect the refurbished helicopters will sail with Trenton to India," he said, adding there were other government-to-government military sales on the cards, including the supply of 10 C-130J Hercules transport aircraft. Kohler said the US had delivered 10 of the 12 AN-TPQ37 weapon locating radars ordered by India under a $190 million (about Rs 860 crore) contract. The two remaining radars would be delivered by February next year. He also disclosed that US companies were bidding for for proposals for anti-tank missiles, anti-ship missiles for the air force and weather radars.