US revokes minor defence sanctions as DoD steps up quake relief effort

US revokes minor defence sanctions as DoD steps up quake relief effort
CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA

WASHINGTON, FEB 2: The Vajpayee government and the Bush administration will have the first high-level contact this weekend with the likely meeting in Munich between National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra and the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Both officials will be in the Bavarian capital on Saturday to attend the annual meeting on security policy that attracts the world's strategic elite. Mishra has been attending this `Strategic Davos' (as one official described it) for the past three years.

With the new US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld deciding to go this year (Secretary Cohen was there last year), Washington is believed to have taken the initiative for setting up the meeting and the Indian side agreed readily.

This will be the first cabinet level meeting between the two sides after President Bush's telephone conversation with Prime Minister Vajpayee earlier this week.

Although that phone call was part of a routine during which Bush has been making introductory calls to all major world leaders, officials said most of the conversation centered around the Gujarat earthquake and Bush's condolences over the tragedy.

Following that exchange and criticism from some quarters over the niggardly aid from Washington, the United States has stepped up its relief effort and raised the relief package to be distributed through USAID from $ 5 million to $ 9 million.

In addition, the Bush administration has also deployed its formidable military to help with the quake relief efforts.

Two US Air Force transport planes left California and Delaware over the past 48 hours on their way to Ahmedabad. The aircraft are carrying a two and half ton-ton truck, two large forklifts, two 400-gallon water trailers, about 10,000 blankets and 1500 sleeping bags, and 92 large tents capable of accommodating 50 people each.

The US Pacific Command has also sent a six-person military assessment team to assist the US embassy in evaluating potential DoD support to continued relief efforts. The team is composed of experts in communications, logistics, and medical support.

This the first time there has been institutional cooperation of this magnitude after the 1990 Gulf War when India clandestinely allowed American planes to refuel in Mumbai.

The Bush administration also revoked some of the sanctions imposed on India in the wake its nuclear tests to enable it get spares for the Sea King helicopters New Delhi had bought from Britain.

More than half of the Indian Navy's 30-chopper Sea King fleet has been grounded because Sikorsky, the US company that holds the licence for the Sea King spares had to toe the Clinton administration's sanctions policy.

In a farewell meeting with journalists on Thursday Ambassador Naresh Chandra, who returns to New Delhi later this month after a four year stint in Washington, indicated that defence ties, which were thrown out of kilter following the nuclear tests, were slowly returning to normal.

While the revocation of the embargo on helicopter spares presaged a full review of US sanctions policy, Chandra also said New Delhi and Washington could resume the institutional defence and technology meetings. These meetings are held under the aegis of the Defence Policy Group and the Joint Technical Groups, both of which have been in limbo for the past couple of years following the nuclear tests.

The meetings were scuppered when subsequent to the nuclear tests the Clinton administration set non-proliferation benchmarks that included India signing the nuclear test ban treaty. With the Bush administration likely to put the treaty on the backburner, defence ties between the two sides could resume again.

The mission statement signed by New Delhi and Washington during President Clinton's visit last Spring also enjoins annual cabinet level meetings between top officials. It is likely therefore that External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh will meet Secretary of State Colin Powell before too long.