AFP, NEW DELHI: India and Russia signed a 1.5-billion-dollar deal Tuesday for the sale of a refurbished Soviet-era aircraft carrier to the Indian navy, in a major boost to military cooperation between the long-time allies.
The package covers overhauling the 44,570-tonne Admiral Gorshkov carrier and supplying 28 MiG-29K maritime fighter jets and other “components,” Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov announced after day-long negotiations.
He did not specify the add-ons but experts said Russia would supply Kamov-28 and Kamov-31 anti-submarine helicopters, missiles, electronics and new navigation systems to the 273-metre (900-foot) carrier, currently rusting in a Russian port.
“Military and technical cooperation is a highly sensitive area and so I am not making any more comments on that,” Ivanov said as sources told AFP that Moscow was likely to spend almost 700 million dollars refurbishing the carrier.
The deal, which both Ivanov and his Indian counterpart George Fernandes called “historic,” is the largest military sale between India and its main arms supplier Russia since the 1991 Soviet breakup.
“We have signed an important landmark contract,” said Ivanov. Fernandes said: “We have just witnessed the signing of the document on Admiral Gorshkov and MiG29Ks. This is a historic occasion.”
Both ruled out speculation that Russia would lease out a nuclear-powered submarine to India but Ivanov said military cooperation would not be confined just to a buyer-seller relationship.
“We are not solely confined to naval cooperation. We are looking at cooperation among land forces and the two air forces.
“We hope to move from seller-to-buyer relations to research areas and BraHmos is a good example of our cooperation,” Ivanov said of a jointly-produced cruise missile.
“Russia is prepared to offer to India the broadest assistance to modernise tanks, planes, artillery systems and other armaments and military hardware,” he said, as the Russian defence ministry in a statement added that Moscow would soon supply a state-of-art frigate to India.
It said Russia has also sent to India 350 commercial proposals in the defence sector.
The carrier deal caps India's shopping spree for military hardware.
Last September, New Delhi cleared the purchase of 66 British Aerospace Hawk jet trainers for 1.7 billion dollars and a month later clinched a deal with Israel for the import of three Phalcon airborne early warning radar systems at one billion dollars.
India also plans to build six French-designed Scorpene submarines with the overall value of the numerous contracts generated by the project being estimated at around two billion euros (2.1 billion dollars).
In the past 24 months, Russia supplied 300 of its latest T-90 battle tanks and a fleet of Sukhoi-30 fighter jets to India in separate deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Ivanov said there was room for more deals.
Gorshkov, which joined the Soviet forces 18 years ago, would fill the vacuum left by 1997's scrapping of India's first aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant, which had been in service since 1961.
Gorshkov's delivery is set for 2008, almost the same time as India is scheduled to mothball its remaining aircraft carrier, INS Viraat.
An Indian government statement reinforced Ivanov's comments on expanding cooperation with Russia.
“The signing of this contract constitutes a landmark in the military-technical co-operation and will contribute to furthering of our defence, technological and bilateral relations as a whole,” it said.
