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Russia denies helping India develop submarine-launched missiles

Russia is not helping India develop an ocean-launched ballistic missile that could reach deep into Pakistan, a senior government official said today.

"Such work is not being done,'' Yevgeny Ananyev, director general of the state arms trading company, Rosvooruzheniye, told a news conference on Tuesday.

The Russian denial comes even as the United States questioned India's denial that it is developing, with Russian help, an ocean-launched ballistic missile, Sagarika, which can carry a nuclear warhead and strike deep into neighbouring Pakistan.

''We know India is working on a missile called Sagarika and we understand this is a long-term project which is still in its early stages of development,'' a state department official said on Monday, commenting on a report to this effect in The New York Times.

''We also understand that the project is being developed in conjunction with efforts to build and design in India a nuclear-powered ballistic submarine,'' the state department official said.

The Indian government has denied the NYT report. ''India does not have any project of this kind,'' a defence ministry spokesperson said on Monday evening.

New Delhi, the state department official said, had been getting ''some assistance'' from Moscow in pursuing the missile project. The Clinton administration, he added, had taken up the issue with the Russian government.

In its reply, he pointed out the Russian government had insisted ''it is acting in a manner consistent with the guidelines of the Missile Technology Control Regime." The MTCR is a 29 nation accord to contain missile proliferation.

The official said Moscow had provided ''certain assurances'' to the US about its assistance to the Sagarika project. He declined to detail the assurances on the ground that they were a matter of diplomatic exchanges between Moscow and Washington.

Monday's NYT report said Russia had assured the Americans that its role in India's project did not involve missile design and that it ''would continue to be circumscribed.''

Official sources said the US had not yet determined whether the Russian assistance to the Sagarika programme was inconsistent with MTCR guidelines.

The NYT report said the Russian assistance has continued for at least three years, despite assurances from Moscow that its scientists are not contributing restricted technology to India's missile programme.

Although not tested, the Sagarika is said to have a range of nearly 322 km and is meant to be launched from submerged submarines.

This month Pakistan tested a medium-range missile, Ghauri, that can carry a nuclear weapon and allow Islamabad to strike virtually anywhere in India.

Russia's sale of missiles and missile technology has been one of the more nettlesome obstacles to its improved relations with the United States since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the NYT added.

US officials first approached Russia with its concerns in the spring of 1995. At that time, the officials said, Russia acknowledged that scientists from quasi-public research institutes that grew out of the Soviet military-industrial complex were providing technological help for the Sagarika missile.

But the Russians insisted that the assistance was limited and involved only the technology needed to launch a missile from beneath the ocean's surface, the Americans said.

''We had rather extensive discussions, and the Russians told us that there was some co-operation between Russian entities and the Indians, but that the co-operation was very circumscribed,'' a senior administration official said.

The administration received ''certain commitments'' that the Russian role did not involve missile design and that it ''would continue to be circumscribed.''

Since then, however, intelligence reports have continued to raise questions about Russia's involvement. Another official said the help had included ''significant engineering services,'' as well as parts and equipment necessary to build and launch the missile.

The assistance appears to violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the 1993 agreement between Russia and the US to stop helping India or any other country develop ballistic missile technology.

At that time, the NYT points out, Russia cancelled a Soviet-era sale of equipment and technology to India that could have been used to build a ballistic missile. Russia also agreed to adhere to the MTCR.

In exchange, the Clinton administration agreed to lift sanctions that the Bush administration had imposed on the Indian and Russian space-research programmes, clearing the way for American and Russian co-operation on space and satellite programmes.

At the state department, the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, officials are divided about whether Russia's assistance violates the MTCR, which could prompt sanctions against both India and Russia.

Some officials have concluded that helping the Sagarika to develop is a clear violation of the MTCR. Others say it slips under the limits of the agreement.

The intelligence reports, the officials said, have also left uncertainties, with some suggesting that the Sagarika is a less sophisticated Cruise missile and not a ballistic missile, although either could fall under the regime's restrictions.

A senior Pentagon official said even if Russian help did not necessarily violate the regime, the co-operation has still raised concerns that India is close to mastering technology that would significantly improve its arsenal of missiles, which are now relatively primitive. After that, India could quickly build longer- range missiles.

''The key sensitivity is that the Indians will learn how to launch something from under water -- get it above the water and ignite an engine,'' the official said. ''and then they'll go to the next step after that on their own, something with a longer range.''

The NYT claims the Defence Research Development Organisation has been working on the Sagarika for much of the 1990s. Although its range of nearly 200 miles would classify it as a short-range missile, it is a solid-fuelled missile, making it an advance over India's liquid-fuelled missile, the Prithvi.

Meanwhile, former prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral denied that India's missile project has been reportedly built by Russian assistance in his address at the Confederation of Indian Industry convention in Delhi on Tuesday.

Referring to the knee-jerk reactions after Pakistan's test flight of the Ghauri missile, Gujral said India still suffers from ''half baked ideas on foreign policy and this has created problems.'' In this context the former PM expressed surprise that ''men in responsible offices are unecessarily getting worried."

''We must not react in panic,'' Gujral said, ruling out any war -- nuclear or conventional -- with Pakistan. ''Should a challenge come India can look after itself,'' he said.

C K Arora in Washington, UNI

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