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India and the US have finally agreed to sign the logistics support agreement or as official known Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA).
“Secretary (Ashton) Carter and I have agreed in principle to conclude a LEMOA in the coming months,” said Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar here on Tuesday during a joint press briefing with US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter.
While Parrikar said the draft agreement will be finalised in “a month”, Carter said it will be ready in a “few weeks”. The talks are still on and it will be “at least June” when the pact will be finalised, a senior official told BusinessLine .
According to sources, both sides have still not been able to reach a consensus on how the Agreement, which is also known as Logistics Support Agreement (LSA) in the US, will be operated between both the military establishments.
The differences also relate to the manner in which the agreement will function and the circumstances under which it will operate.
This pact is part of the three defence foundation agreements that the US had been pushing India to sign for over a decade now. But, India had been reluctant to sign these agreements as it feared that it would be passing sensitive information to US military and be party to military operations that it disapproves of, sources added.
According to the US, these pacts are critical for enhancing defence ties with its partner countries. “This agreement makes it more routine for us to operate logistically. There are issues to be resolved. We will have to see how the agreement works,” said Carter.
Shipping pact The US Defence Secretary, who is on a three-day visit to India, also said that both countries will soon conclude a commercial shipping information agreement to improve data sharing on commercial shipping traffic.
Both countries also decided to expand the Indo-US Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI) by agreeing to initiate two new pathfinder projects on Digital Helmet Mounted Displays and the Joint Biological Tactical Detection System. Under DTTI, both Parrikar and Carter said they will now focus “more aggressively” on areas such as jet engine technology.
Separately, both countries also signed four government-to-government pacts amounting nearly $44 million in areas such as lasers, target detection, UAVs and traumatic brain injury.
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