India likely to miss NATO+ grouping of US arms buyers |
The US House of Representatives is scheduled to pass a defence budget legislation without a provision that would have put major defence purchases intended for India on the same fast-track mechanism that is now used for clearing arms deals for America`s NATO allies and a handful of other countries. This will effectively end efforts to catapult India into that category in 2020, as the US Senate`s defence bill for the coming fiscal, passed late June, also did not contain that clause.Multiple people involved in the framing and movement of the legislative provision through US Congress attributed the collapse of these efforts, in background interviews, to opposition from the state department and some to the Congress for India`s planned purchase of Russian S-400 missile defence systems.“It`s disappointing,” said one of them, “but we will not give up and try again in 2020 (for the 2021 budget).”If enacted, the provision would have speeded up the clearance of major defence purchases intended for India, by cutting the current 30-day period for US Congress to raise objections or block them under the Arms Export Control Act to 15 days, a privilege the United States extends only to its NATO allies and five other countries, together called the NATO+5.
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