-Vinayak Barot
New Delhi: A top American admiral John Aquilino expressed his views on rising relations between India and the US. On Tuesday John said, “The US needs to understand that India has a longstanding relationship with the Russians for security cooperation and military equipment.”
Admiral John Aquilino the next commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command or INDOPACOM.
In his views, he said that “he would push for encouraging New Delhi to move away from Moscow rather than taking the route of sanctions for the purchase of major defence equipment.”
Admiral John Aquilino expressed his views when he was responding to a question on India’s decision to purchase the S-400 missile system from Russia.
Further, he added that “India is really a terrific partner and as we have seen from the recent Quad discussions, I think the importance of India and the rest of the nations in the Quad will increase. We are at a balance. However, India has had a longstanding relationship with the Russians for security cooperation and for military equipment.”
The government is expected to buy 21 MiG-29 and 12 Sukhoi-30MKI fighter aircraft from Russia. The IAF has so far inducted 268 of 272 Russian Sukhoi jets, with around nine of them lost to accidents and crashes over the years.
According to defence experts “Russia and the United States are racing to sell weapons to India as New Delhi seeks to boost arms supplies for its ongoing military tension with Beijing. Russia has been the main supplier to India since the Soviet era. Since 2000, it has sold about US$35 billion worth of weapons, accounting for more than two-thirds of India’s arms procurement of US$51 billion.”
Experts further added that “India has already started to reduce its dependency on one foreign nation and search other options to make its defence stronger. India received several Rafale fighter jets from France and working tremendously on Tejas.”
Admiral John Aquilino also praised India’s efforts and work which has been taken to protect its northern border amid standoff with china. “The fact that the PRC has decided to instigate that skirmish on the northern border is noteworthy to all of us,” he said
