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India is a privileged defence partner, says Sergei Ivanov

Vladimir Radyuhin

"We share identical approaches in tackling terrorism and issues concerning security"

MOSCOW. India is one of Russia's most privileged partners in military-technical cooperation and also security, according to Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov.

"Military-technical cooperation is a very sensitive field. It is possible only between countries that share complete trust and have good political and economic relations," Mr. Ivanov told the media after calling on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here on Monday.

Building transport aircraft

They discussed various aspects of defence ties, including an agreement on building jointly Multi-role Transport Aircraft (MTA) for the armed forces of the two countries, supply of Russian spares and progress on the weapon deals signed earlier.

The signing of the Intellectual Property Rights agreement planned for Tuesday will "definitely give an impetus to defence cooperation in high technologies," he said. "We are increasingly moving away from buyer-seller relationship to technological cooperation."

Mr. Ivanov said India and Russia had identical approaches to tackling terrorism and issues concerning security. "India shares our concern on terrorism and is fighting terrorism, not in word, but in deed."

He pointed out that India was the only country with which Russia had a long-term programme of defence cooperation till 2010, under which $9-billion worth of contracts have already been signed.

Russia may deploy its air force units at the Aini airfield in Tajikistan which India has helped overhaul. Mr. Ivanov said he had discussed the possibility with Dr. Singh.

"We have touched upon this issue," he said. "Russia is interested in deploying at Aini the airplanes and helicopters which belong to the Russian military base in Tajikistan. We are also conducting talks on this issue with the authorities of Tajikistan."

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