DTN News: Is The US Dictating India’s Defence Deals?
* Questions being raised since Antony cancelled $1.6bn airbus deal agreed with EADS
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Source: Daily Times By Iftikhar Gilani
(NSI News Source Info) NEW DELHI, India - February 21, 2010: Is the Indian government under pressure from the United States to cancel its defence deals with European companies and purchase defence equipment from American firms?
The question is being raised after Defence Minister AK Antony recently struck down a $1.6 billion order bagged by the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) for supplying the Airbus transport planes to the Indian Air Force (IAF).
This is yet another order that has been “legitimately won” by a European defence company last year, with the IAF selecting the multi-role tanker-transport Airbus A330 after negotiating with companies for four year. But the deal was arbitrarily cancelled by Antony without giving any reason. Last year, India concluded a deal with Eurocopter – a French-German conglomeration –for buying 197 helicopters, which was also cancelled by Antony.
The Defence Ministry gave a very “shadowy” financial argument to explain why Boeing’s P81 Poseidon reconnaissance aircrafts were preferred over the Airbus in another deal. Another decision to award a large tender for “secure defence communication” equipment to Motorola – an American firm – instead of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), is also mired in “red tape and secrecy”, with the Defence Ministry failing to provide any plausible explanation for “dumping the winner” and preferring the US company instead.
The IAF officials who laboured for four years to finally pick up Airbus A330 are disturbed over the defence minister’s striking down of the contract as their efforts, energy and money had all gone to waste.
Defence analysts say there may not be a great conspiracy, but there is certainly something wrong in the way the Defence Ministry is cancelling deals with European companies despite of their winning the tenders and fulfilling the quality requirements of the Indian forces.
They pointed out that finalised transactions between sovereign nations do not “just get cancelled”. The question being raised at the moment is whether the Manmohan Singh-government is succumbing to the continued US pressure, or are there some “shadowy agents” who are influencing the government’s decisions.
Analysts say Antony cannot be blamed for cancelling the concluded deals, as he must be acting only on the advice of higher-ranked Defence Ministry officials. Analysts point out that unlike the US, the European firms had always agreed to the complete transfer of technology of the latest weaponry, and that too with no strings attached.
Hence, the denial of opportunity to them is astounding. Is it because the US helped India get into the nuclear nations’ family after over two decades of isolation that US companies are being preferred? Since the signing of the civilian nuclear deal, the US are sitting pretty on actual and potential defence orders worth $10 billion from India.
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Source: DTN News / Int'l Media Stuart Williams AFP
(NSI News Source Info) MOSCOW, Russia - February 22, 2010: Senior Russian figures have recently signaled mounting frustration with Iran over its nuclear program, 
a departure from Moscow's usual practice of moderating the West's more hard-line approach to the Islamic republic. With the United States courting Moscow on the subject, Russia may join the West in agreeing sanctions
In half a decade of nuclear crisis, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has counted on the Russia of strongman Vladimir Putin to balance the hardline of the West with a more moderate stance.
But in the last weeks, senior Russian figures have signaled mounting frustration with Iran, saying that new sanctions could be realistic and even casting doubt on Tehran's insistence that its nuclear drive is peaceful.
With the United States courting Moscow on the subject, speculation has grown that the previously unthinkable might happen - Russia joining the West in agreeing sanctions that would threaten the Iranian economy.
Analysts caution however that while there has been an unprecedented shift in Russia's rhetoric on Iran, this does not equate to a wholesale change in policy that could see it back tough measures against the Iranian oil industry.
The position of Russia, which has the closest contacts with Iran of any major power, is crucial. It is a veto-bearing U.N. Security Council permanent member and also has an unmatched capacity to influence Tehran.
"In the last months it is true that a lot has changed in the behavior of Russia towards Iran," Rajab Safarov, director of the Center for Contemporary Iranian Studies in Moscow, told AFP. "But it is the emphasis and the tone that have shifted, while Russia's overall position on Iran has not changed," he added. "These statements are an attempt to put pressure on Iran to make it more open to negotiations."
Fear of regional tensions
Russia's chief worry in the nuclear crisis was preventing any dramatic escalation of regional tensions, given that its southern border lies just 150 kilometers from Iran, said Safarov.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Iran's arch enemy in the region, was in Moscow last week to seek Russian support for "biting" sanctions against Iran that would hit the oil industry, its foreign currency lifeblood.
But while President Dmitry Medvedev has since September 2009 repeatedly said that sanctions could not be ruled out, Russia appears to be some way from backing Western calls for tough economic punishment.
Safarov said: "In spite of its threatening statements, Russia would not support a Security Council resolution for new sanctions if there was one now."
Russia is in "a slightly different place" to a few months ago, said one Western diplomat, asking not to be named. "But there is still a huge process to go through."
With Russia often finding itself sidelined in post-Cold War diplomacy, the prolongation of the Iran standoff allows it to flex its muscles on a big issue where it unquestionably remains a player. "Russia has an interest in the issue remaining in suspense," said Alexei Malashenko of the Carnegie Centre in Moscow. "If Ahmadinejad gives in to the pressure, Russia will first get the credit but then its role would diminish. Russia will never vote for economic sanctions at the U.N. Security Council against Iran as it would lose its specific role."
With Russia's position crucial, one man has kept a careful public silence. The last major policy statement on Iran from Putin, who in 2007 became the first Kremlin chief to visit Tehran in the Islamic Republic's history, dates back to October.
But lower-ranking figures have made statements that would have been unimaginable just months before. Iran is "always changing its conditions" and Russia's fears were now "not so far away" from those of Europe and the United States, said parliament's foreign affairs committee chief Konstantin Kosachev last month.
A string of unpleasant surprises has given Russia good reason to revise its tone on Iran. Russia, which prides itself on having intelligence sources inside Iran far superior to those of the West, was taken aback by Tehran's revelation in September that it had built a new secret nuclear plant.
Along with France and the United States, it is also a key player in a deal brokered by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency that aimed to defuse the standoff by enriching Iranian uranium abroad.
Iran so far appears to have rejected the deal, a defiance that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has openly criticised as regrettable.
In the energy-sapping game of nerves Iran is playing against the international community, Russia still holds some powerful pieces that give it a leverage on Tehran that no-one else can boast.
Chief among these are five sophisticated S-300 air defense missile systems, which Russia agreed to sell to Iran for a reported 800 million dollars several years ago but has never delivered.
Russia is also building Iran's first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr, a much-delayed project dating back to the shah's era that is finally due to come online this year.
Holbrooke made the remarks after meeting with Kazakhstan's Secretary of State and Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev earlier in the day in Astana.
Holbrooke said Uzbekistan has given valuable support for the U.S. transportation of materials to Afghanistan. He also appreciated Kyrgyzstan's consent to set up a pass-through transportation center at the Manas international airport.
Holbrooke also met with Kazakhstan's Prime Minister Karim Masimov on bilateral and multilateral cooperation and development. They exchanged views about coordination on the Afghanistan issue.
Holbrooke would travel to Georgia after his visit to Kazakhstan.
