Russia hopes to sign military intellectual property pact with India by year-end
Kiran Chaube
Oct. 15, 2005

Russia has said that absence of an agreement with India on protection of military intellectual property right (IPR) has become a "tangible barrier" in joint development of sophisticated weapons and cutting-edge defence technologies but hoped the pact would be signed by year-end.

"Indo-Russian defence cooperation began in 1960 and has been steadily growing for almost fifty years now. India's share in Russia's arms exports amounts to minimum 40 per cent," Russian Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov told PTI on the eve of his four-day visit to India beginning Saturday [15 October].

"We have left behind primitive schemes like buyer-seller relationship and have successfully developed Brahmos cruise missiles, multi-role fighters (Su-30MKI), fruitful interaction is underway in naval shipbuilding, but further advance is stalled due to lack of IPR agreement. It has become a barrier, a tangible barrier," he said.

The Russian Defence Minister reminded that this issue was strongly raised during President Vladimir Putin's talks in New Delhi with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during the Indo-Russian summit last December.

"We have dropped our initial demand of its retrospective effect (on Soviet era supplies) and the latest draft of the agreement has been sent to New Delhi for approval," he said, hoping that by the end of this year a final agreement would be signed clearing the way for the joint development of sophisticated weapons and cutting-edge defence technologies.

Ivanov is reaching New Delhi on late Saturday evening to watch the active phase of bi-annual Indo-Russian wargames ''Indra-2005'' involving elite airborne troops and naval warships on October 16-18 in Rajasthan and Bay of Bengal.

Ivanov said India and Russia already conducted joint naval exercises ''Indra-2003'' in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal two years back, but this year's drill is of anti-terror nature and has been organized within the framework of Indo-Russian anti-terror cooperation.

"You in Kashmir and we in Chechnya became the victims of international terrorism, much before everybody started talking about anti-terror combat and have accumulated a rich experience in combating it. We can gain from each others experience," Ivanov said, adding that Russia has sent a company of its elite 76th Pskov Airborne Division's paratroopers to India, hardened in Chechnya.

The minister did not rule out that some time in future a joint anti-terror exercise involving Russia, India and China along with some other member states of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan could be held. He recalled that earlier this year India became an observer of SCO.

He said that during his India visit he is not going to discuss new defence deals with Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, as a regular session of the inter-governmental commission on military-technical cooperation, of which both of them are co-chairmen, is scheduled to meet in Moscow next month to discuss these issue.

Ivanov, a Putin loyalist, in the past has acted as a direct channel for confidential exchanges between the Kremlin in Moscow and PMO in New Delhi on highly sensitive issues, bypassing the usual diplomatic track.

Ivanov also indicated that during his talks with National Security Adviser M K Narayanan the energy cooperation, both in hydrocarbons and civilian nuclear field, are to be discussed.

When asked whether the new US approach on civilian- nuclear cooperation with India could clear the way for more Kudankulam like Russian nuclear power projects, Ivanov said that both Russia and US are the members of Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and both have similar obligations.

"However, a) we have an understanding of India's acute energy requirements, b) we know that India has an impeccable non-proliferation record, c) India's domestic regimes and legislations replicate the non-proliferation pacts, although it has not signed NPT, d) it is the largest democracy.

"All this allows us to trust India in sensitive issues bordering on proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," Ivanov stressed.

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