JOIN USIndia reacts to US nudge to cut down on arms from Russia
India’s independent foreign policy and national security interests guide its decisions on defence acquisitions, the government said on Friday, responding to the outgoing American Ambassador Kenneth Juster’s statement that tacitly suggested that New Delhi should choose the United States over Russia as the primary source of its military hardware.
“India has always pursued an independent foreign policy. This also applies to our defence acquisitions and supplies which are guided by our national security interests,” Anurag Srivastava, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), told journalists.
He was responding to a query on New Delhi’s view on the recent statement of the outgoing envoy of the United States to India.
Juster on Tuesday stated that India might like to keep its options open for procuring military hardware, but it would ultimately have to make its choices.
He indicated that the United States might not have any plan to immediately impose restrictions mandated by the 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) on India for buying S-400 missile defence systems from Russia. He, however, added that it might not be optimal for India to source its military hardware from a range of suppliers from different countries, given the prevailing strategic landscape.
“India and the US have a comprehensive global strategic partnership,” the MEA spokesperson said on Friday, adding: “India has a special and privileged strategic partnership with Russia.”
The US last month imposed the CAATSA sanctions on Turkey for the $ 2.5 billion deal President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Government clinched with Russia for procuring the S-400 Triumf air defence systems. The US move against its NATO-ally Turkey triggered concerns in New Delhi, where many saw in it a not-so-subtle warning to India, which too in October 2018 inked a $5.4 billion deal to buy five S-400 Triumf long-range surface-to-air missile systems from Almaz-Antey Corporation of Russia and is expecting the delivery to start in 2021. The US not only imposed sanctions on Turkey, but also asked “other countries” to take note and avoid acquisition of military hardware from Russia.
The US Congress in July 2017 passed the CAATSA to impose sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea. Trump signed it into law in August 2017 and its scope was further expanded in October 2017. Section 231 of the CAATSA mandated secondary sanctions to any nation entering into high-value deals to procure military hardware from Russia.
New Delhi has been arguing with Washington D.C. over the past few months that India cannot abruptly scale down its reliance on military hardware from Russia, given the decades-old history of defence cooperation between the two countries.
“While we appreciate that India has its own historical and geographical perspective, in today’s strategic landscape it may not be optimal to source equipment across a range of suppliers from different countries,” Juster said on Tuesday.
His comment appeared to be a subtle attempt by the US to nudge India to lessen its dependence on Russia for defence equipment.