WASHINGTON – The United States has said it has discussed with India a newlyenacted American law that could potentially determine the purchase of theS-400 air defence missile system from Russia as sanctionable activity,Hindustan Times has reported.
In a carefully worded statement to Hindustan Times, the US state departmentdid not directly say if the purchase of the weapon system by India wassanctionable.
Refusing to confirm or deny discussions with the US on this issue, anIndian official in New Delhi said, “India’s relations with third countries(such as Russia) were not a part of discussions with the US and our defencerequirements were determined by us only, independent of pressures andoutside influence.”
India and Russia finalised an inter-governmental agreement on the S-400Triumf air defence systems in October 2016 and are currently in advancednegotiations for at least five systems worth an estimated $4.5 billion. Thenegotiations have been stuck because of differences over the price, Indianofficials said.
Reports have suggested India and Russia will try to sort out thesedifferences during defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s upcoming visit toMoscow. Vladimir Drozhzhov, deputy head of Russia’s federal service formilitary-technical cooperation, told reporters on Thursday Moscow hopes toink the deal with New Delhi in 2018.
But the deal could set India and the US on a “collision course”, CaraAbercrombie, a US defence department official with expertise on militaryties with India and who is currently with Carnegie, wrote in an op-ed inAxios, an online news publication, this week.
It could leave India open to sanctions under the Countering AmericanAdversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which mandates the USadministration to punish entities engaging “in a significant transactionwith…the defense or intelligence sectors” of Russia.
The legislation was signed into law by President Donald Trump in August2017 and went into effect in January. It seeks to punish Russia for“malign” activities in Ukraine and Syria and meddling in the 2016 US polls.
Abercrombie suggested a waiver from US Congress to allow India to go aheadwith the deal in view of its security needs.
A US state department spokesperson said on Friday in response to a questionon whether the S-400 deal could run into CAATSA trouble, “We have discussedCAATSA with the government of India, and the US intends to work with ourpartners to help them identify and avoid engaging in potentiallysanctionable activity.”