India hopes for Patriot nod

India is awaiting positive signals from the Bush Administration for acquiring Patriot air and missile system from the US.The ‘‘str...

India is awaiting positive signals from the Bush Administration for acquiring Patriot air and missile system from the US.

The ‘‘strategic’’ sale of anti-missile systems to India were broadly discussed during National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra’s meeting with US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage this month.

The issue was also taken up during last week’s visit of US Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen G Rademaker to New Delhi. Although Rademaker deals with multilateral arms control issues, the Indian interlocutors used the opportunity to convey New Delhi’s desire to move towards the sale of Raytheon’s Patriot Advanced Capability-3 or PAC-3 system to India.

The PAC-3, according to the arms industry, is an interceptor missile that is more advanced that its previous versions — it has a hit-to-kill system rather than having an exploding warhead — with an eight-round launcher and a range of 15 km. The system has a single-stage, short range, low to high altitude capability with a maximum speed of five times the speed of sound.

The sale of PAC-3 system to India has been under discussion in the Bush administration since May, 2002 with the latter indicating that it is not averse to New Delhi acquiring the anti-missile capability.

However, the vital issue has not gathered momentum as Washington is still to give green signal to Raytheon to officially send ‘‘price, availability and technical information’’ about the system to India.

Aware that the Patriot system has only been released to countries that are close strategic partners of the US, New Delhi understands that it will be a time-consuming process. The issue of releasing Patriot to India is under consideration of the Bush administration since August 2002 with New Delhi officially requesting for ‘‘classified’’ technical information about the system.

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India, on its part, is trying to convince the Americans about its proven track record on non-proliferation, onward proliferation besides its no-first-use nuclear policy. The Vajpayee Government is reassuring Washington that it has no intention of changing its nuclear posture once it acquires anti-missile capability.

The release of PAC-3 to India would demonstrate in a significant and concrete way that the US is moving forward to develop a strategic relationship with India. This is something that US President George Bush has overtly conveyed to Indian interlocutors time and again.

It is learnt that a positive decision on the release of the Patriot system could be conveyed to India during the bilateral Defence Policy Group (DPG) meeting, tentatively scheduled for end of June or early July, in Washington.

While it is understood that the deal may be entering its final stages, New Delhi knows that it will have to convince the Cold-Warriers in the US State Department before it is given a go-ahead.