'U.S. Flexible To Adapt Itself to Meet India's Defense Needs'

WASHINGTON: The United States is ready to give a special role to India in its "Asia-Pacific rebalance" strategy and is "flexible" to adapt itself to meet the Indian defence needs, a former U.S. government official has said.

The official, who played a key role in India-U.S. defense ties in past few years, hoped the Narendra Modi-led government with a decisive mandate would clear the high-tech projects that the two countries can co-produce for their respective armed forces.

He said the Obama administration is ready to go that extra mile to help India realize its ambition of being self-reliant in defense research, development and production.

About 10 months ago, the then deputy secretary of defense Ashton Carter had submitted to the then UPA government a comprehensive list of defense systems, which the U.S. was ready to co-develop and co-produce with India.

"Those were projects that our industry would like to do with the Indian industry," the official told PTI in a recent interview on condition that his name would not be disclosed given the sensitivity of the defence relationship between the two countries.

These projects cover a whole gamut of defense system from hi-tech information, command and control and reconnaissance and naval systems. The proposals also included various kinds of advance aircrafts and weapons systems for the two armies.

Many of these proposals are those, which the U.S. wants to introduce for its own armed forces, the official said, referring to level of high-tech items that the Pentagon wants to co-develop and co-produce with India in the coming years.