MOSCOW: Russian Defence Minister has expressed the hope that India will take part in future joint war games with the Shanghai security group, but downplayed the possibility of trilateral military manoeuvres with India and China.

"India, which has recently joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) as an observer, may be interested in establishing closer security and defence ties with this group, which was set up to deal primarily with security issues," he said. "So I would certainly not rule out that at some point in the future India will take part in multilateral military exercises staged by SCO."

These should not necessarily be trilateral war games and were likely to involve also Central Asian members of the SCO. The Shanghai group comprises Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Last summer, India, Pakistan and Iran joined the group as observers. Mongolia received the observer status last year.

Mr. Ivanov said an invitation to India might be sent when the format and the time frame for the multilateral war games were defined.

Anti-terrorist training

Speaking to The Hindu before his departure for India on Saturday to observe the second phase of Indo-Russian exercises of airborne and naval forces in Rajasthan, Mr. Ivanov said the joint manoeuvres for anti-terrorist training represented a "qualitative jump" in military-to-military cooperation between the two countries.

"Russia and India both suffer from terrorism and have rich experience to share in dealing with the threat. "

New defence deals will be discussed during Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee's visit here next month for a meeting of the Indo-Russian Intergovernmental Commission for Military-Technical Cooperation.

`A barrier'

Describing India as Russia's "leading defence partner," which accounts for "at least 40 per cent" of its weapon sales, Mr. Ivanov said the two countries were cooperating in the development of high-precision weapons, such as the BrahMos missile, aircraft and naval warships. But the absence of a bilateral defence secrecy pact was beginning to pose "a credible barrier to further progress in military-technical cooperation."

He said: "I do hope very much that our two countries will sign an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) agreement before the end of the year." Russia dropped its demand for backdating the IPR accord to Soviet-era supplies and the ball was now in India's court.

"Without the IPR accord we cannot move on to a higher level of defence technology cooperation." During President Vladimir Putin's visit to India in December 2004 the sides undertook to sign the agreement within four months.

Asked whether Russia would be prepared to engage India in developing anti-missile defences, as the United States offered to do, Mr. Ivanov dismissed the U.S. plans to build a global shield as a "chimera."

Russia would be willing to share with India its technology in setting up area anti-missile defences, "once we have signed the IPR pact," said the confidant of Mr. Putin and key member of the powerful Security Council.

Positive signals

To a query on the India-U.S. civilian nuclear agreement, Mr. Ivanov said Russia was watching the situation.

Even as the Nuclear Suppliers Group restrictions on technology transfers to India are still in place, Moscow is taking note of positive signals from Delhi, such as India's recent anti-proliferation legislation as well as its faultless record in allowing no leakage of sensitive technologies to other countries.

"We can trust India as a responsible partner in the most sensitive sphere of mass destruction weapons, which is closely related to the nuclear energy sphere," Mr. Ivanov said.

On the Iran nuclear programme controversy, he said Russia, "unlike India," did not support the anti-Teheran resolution the Western nations rammed through the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last month.

He warned of "very grave strategic consequences" if the Iran issue was taken before the United Nations Security Council as was being insisted on by the U.S. "We do not think political and diplomatic possibilities of resolving the standoff have been exhausted," Mr. Ivanov said.

"We do not think the IAEA's massive presence in Iran and close on-the-spot inspections of all nuclear facilities have exhausted their useful role. We do think the pressure tactics may be counterproductive and may aggravate the crisis. The main thing is to prevent a showdown."

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