India and Russia on Friday failed to clinch a deal on the acquisition of aircraft carrier 'Admiral Gorshkov' and leasing of long-range TU-22 M3 strategic bombers and maintained that issue of nuclear submarines did not figure in their talks.
Even though the two countries were light-lipped on the nuclear submarines, New Delhi and Moscow signed four wide-ranging defence protocols providing for acquisition by India of Smerch multi-barrel rocket launchers and upgradation of Russian-oade type 877 EKM conventional submarines.
The two countries vowed to forge a strategic partnership in developing high-tech weapons and agreed to finalise the standard contract document in the next two months in this regard.
Defence Minister George Fernandes told reporters that an agreement on the aircraft carrier and the bombers had been reached in principle.
At a joint press meet with visiting Russian Deputy Premier Ilya Klebanov, which was delayed by two-and-a-half hours, he said technical discussion on the warship had been
completed and price negotiation were what needs to be done. Apparently the deadlock was over price negotiations.
However, both Fernandes and Klebanov said no discussions had taken place on the proposal to lease two Akula class nuclear submarines to India.
To a volley of questions, Fernandes persisted that the issue of nuclear submarines had not come up.
The two sides also agreed to speed up the delivery schedule of sophisticated T-90 main battle tanks (MBTS). India has so far received 40 of the contracted 310 tanks.
Bureau Report
