India raised “strong objections” during official meetings with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu in Delhi last week, to the U.S. plan for Foreign Military Sales (FMS) worth $450 million for hardware, software and spares for the F-16 fighter jet programme with Pakistan.
The Hindu has learnt that officials protested the decision at “each and every” bilateral meeting Mr. Lu and his delegation had during their visit for the Quad Senior Officials Meeting (SOM).
In particular, the Indian side cited concerns about the technology and support being made available to Pakistan for the F-16s, that Pakistan claims are needed for “counter-terrorism operations”, and the government conveyed that it believes they are used for operations against India.
Apart from the SOM, Mr. Lu and Defense Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner held intersessional 2+2 meetings with delegations from the Ministries of Defence and External Affairs. In addition, he met with Joint Secretary Vani Rao separately, and also called on Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra.
Mr. Lu told officials that the FMS F-16 package was a maintenance deal for F-16s, some of which are 40 years old and part of the U.S.’s global policy of maintaining its defence sales for their entire lifecycle.
However, New Delhi is understood to have repeated its skepticism on the issue and made its displeasure known quite clearly. In contrast to 2016, when the MEA had issued a statement expressing its “disappointment” of the planned sale of F-16s, and then (Foreign Secretary) S. Jaishankar had summoned the U.S. Ambassador to protest, this time the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has chosen not to make any public comment.
“We heard several concerns from the Indian govt,” admitted Mr. Lu in an interview to the India Today TV channel. “Let me say this very clearly, this is a safety and maintenance programme. There is no new aircraft being considered, no new capability and no new weapons system,” he added.
Significantly, the announcement of the FMS package came while Mr. Lu and Mr. Ratner were in Delhi, and some of the reason for the government’s upset was that it took them by surprise.
The announcement made by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, that gave details of the 12 categories the U.S. would provide support to Pakistan for, said that the State Department had approved the deal and that the DSCA delivered the required certification notifying Congress of possible sale on September 7.
Mr. Lu also expressed some skepticism about the latest India-China disengagement agreement at PP-15 at the Line of Actual Control announced this week, saying that the U.S. is not seeing “any sincere effort by Beijing to resolve the dispute”.
He said that the U.S. would stand by India “resolutely” as it faces what he called the “terrible threat” from China. The MEA declined to comment on his remarks.
The disagreement over the F-16 package is one of a number of areas where New Delhi and Washington appear to be at odds, despite a period of active engagement, including the meetings with Mr. Lu in Delhi, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal’s visit to the U.S. for the IPEF ministerial meetings and bilateral trade talks, as well as a visit by U.S. Deputy Secretary of Treasure Wally Ademeyo at the end of August.
Apart from the government’s suspicions over the Biden administration re-kindling ties with Pakistan and the Shehbaz Sharif government, India also decided to stay out of the trade pillar of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, citing concerns any trade agreement may “discriminate” against developing economies over issues like environmental commitments, labour standards and digital laws.
In addition, India has not joined the U.S. push to build a G-7 led coalition on enforcing price caps on Russian oil. Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Mr. Putin at the Eastern Economic Forum that he attended virtually this week that India wants to step up its energy ties with Russia.
In the past few months, India has also rejected U.S. calls to change its vote on Russia at the UN, and refused to cut Russian energy purchases, instead increasing its oil imports from Russia about 50 times.
This week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Uzbekistan, where he will be joined by leaders of Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, Belarus, Pakistan, Central Asian States and possibly Syria, is unlikely to be seen positively by Washington as well.
Security tightened in Varanasi ahead of district court order in Gyanvapi case
Prohibitory orders were clamped and security tightened in Varanasi ahead of the district court order on Monday on the maintainability of the plea in the Gyanvapi mosque-Shringar Gauri case.
District Judge A.K. Vishvesh had last month reserved the order till September 12 in the communally sensitive matter.
Police Commissioner A. Satish Ganesh said on Sunday that prohibitory orders have been issued in the Varanasi commissionerate and officers have been asked to interact with religious leaders in their respective areas to ensure that peace is maintained.
To maintain law and order, he said, the entire city has been divided into sectors which have been allocated police force as per their requirement.
Directives for flag march and foot march in sensitive areas have also been issued, he said.
Checking has been intensified in the district's border areas, hotels and guest houses, while an eye is being also kept on social media.
Five women had filed the petition seeking permission for daily worship of Hindu deities whose idols are said to be located on an outer wall of the Gyanvapi mosque.
The Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee has said the Gyanvapi mosque is a Waqf property and has questioned the maintainability of the plea.
Madan Mohan Yadav, a lawyer of the Hindu side, had said that the mosque was constructed after demolishing the temple.
The case is being heard by the district court following an apex court order.
PM Modi to visit Uzbekistan on September 15-16 to attend SCO Summit
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Samarkand this week to attend the first in-person summit of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) countries since the COVID-19 pandemic, in Samarkand, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said.
As The Hindu had reported in July, the summit in Uzbekistan will be the first time Mr. Modi will come face to face with Chinese President Xi Jinping since the stand-off at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) began in April 2020, and the first time he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin since the invasion in Ukraine, although all three leaders attended a virtual BRICS summit in June.
The MEA statement said that the Prime Minister is “likely to hold a few bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the Summit”, but didn’t confirm which leaders he plans to meet separately. Last week, the Indian and Chinese armies announced a disengagement plan at PP15, one of several friction points, setting the stage for a more cordial engagement between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi, who have not spoken directly since the stand-off began, although they had met 18 times prior to that since 2014.
Other leaders at the SCO summit will include the member Central Asian countries, and Pakistan and Iran, as well as leaders from Turkey and Belarus, which are partner countries.
“During the Summit, the leaders are expected to review the organization’s activities over the past two decades and discuss the state and prospects of multilateral cooperation in the future. Topical issues of regional and global importance are also expected to be discussed at the meeting,” the statement said.
Russian troops retreat after Ukraine counteroffensive
Ukrainian forces pushed its counteroffensive in the country's east, exploiting quick gains they made in a week of fighting that has sharply changed the course of the conflict. Ukraine's quick action to reclaim Russia-occupied areas in the northeastern Kharkiv region forced Moscow to withdraw its troops to prevent them from being surrounded and leave behind significant numbers of weapons and munitions in a hasty retreat as the war marked 200 days on Sunday.
The jubilant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mocked the Russians in a video address late Saturday, saying that “the Russian army these days is demonstrating the best that it can do - showing its back". On Sunday, he posted a video of Ukrainian soldiers hoisting the national flag over Chkalovske, another town they reclaimed from the Russians in the counteroffensive.
Ukrainian servicemen pull a Russian poster off a billboard, revealing a poem by Taras Shevchenko in Balakliia, Kharkiv Region, Ukraine, in this screen grab taken from a video obtained by Reuters and released on September 10, 2022.
Ukraine's military chief, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyy, said that Ukraine had liberated about 3,000 square km since the beginning of September. He noted that the Ukrainian troops are now just 50 km away from the border with Russia.
The Russians' pullback marked the biggest battlefield success for Ukrainian forces since they thwarted a Russian attempt to seize the capital, Kyiv, at the start of the nearly seven-month war. Ukraine's attack in the Kharkiv region came as a surprise for Moscow, which had relocated many of its troops from the area to the south in expectation of the main Ukrainian counteroffensive there.
In an awkward attempt to save face, the Russian Defence Ministry said Saturday the troops' withdrawal from Izyum and other areas in the Kharkiv region was intended to strengthen Russian forces in the neighbouring Donetsk region to the south.
The claim sounded similar to the justification Russia gave for pulling back its forces from the Kyiv region earlier this year when they failed to take the capital.
The group of Russian forces around Izyum has been key for Moscow's effort to capture the Donetsk region, and their pullback will now dramatically weaken the Russian capability to press its offensive to Ukrainian strongholds of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk just south.
In another major development Sunday, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, was reconnected to Ukraine's electricity grid, allowing engineers to shut down its last operational reactor in an attempt to avoid a radiation disaster as fighting rages in the area.
In Brief
U.S. President Joe Biden is set to mark the 21st anniversary of the September 11 attacks at the Pentagon, a year after he ended the long and costly war in Afghanistan that the U.S. and allies launched in response to the terror attacks. White House National Security Council spokesman said Biden will recognise the impact the 2001 attacks had on the U.S. and the world and honour the nearly 3,000 people killed that day when al-Qaeda hijackers took control of commercial planes and crashed them into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
Evening Wrap will return tomorrow.
