India, Russia to market missile

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, JUNE 15. The successful test-firing of the PJ-10 supersonic cruise missile is an ``element of strategic partnership'' between India and Russia, a senior Russian Government member said.

The Russian Deputy Prime Minister in charge of defence industry, Mr. Ilya Klebanov, told reporters on Thursday that the Russian Government was thrusting ``joint development, exploitation and marketing of new weapons'' in line with the Indo-Russian Declaration on Strategic Partnership signed last year.

Mr. Klebanov, who co-chaired the first meeting of the Indo- Russian Intergovernmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation in Moscow this month, said Russia and India were going to ``push the new cruise missile to the markets of third countries''. At the same time, Russia was not planning to induct the PJ-10 missile, built by the Indo-Russian BrahMos joint venture, ``at least not in the near future'', the Vice Premier said.

A leading Russian daily, Izvestia hailed the construction of the new missile as evidence of a quantum jump in Indo-Russian defence cooperation.

``Whereas in the past this cooperation was confined to India buying our military hardware and technologies, today India is an equal partner in joint projects,'' it said, predicting breakthroughs in such Indo-Russian projects as a new military transport aircraft, a fighter plane, a new submarine and integrated air defence systems.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Front Page
Previous : Will Bush play the Russia card?