RF defense minister flies to India to discuss military cooperation

MOSCOW, October 6 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Defense Minister Anatoly
Serdyukov has left for India for talks on military-technical cooperation.
"The Russian defense minister will pay a visit to India on October
6-10 and take part in the 10th session of the Russian-Indian
Intergovernmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation," Serdyukov'
s press-secretary, Irina Kovalchuk, told Itar-Tass.
According to Kovalchuk, "the two sides will analyze the results of
joint activity in the sphere of military-technical cooperation and define
priority tasks to be addressed for its further development. The
negotiating parties plan to sign a final protocol to set guidelines for
military cooperation and measures to implement current projects."
"The issues in focus will be the repair and upgrading of the heavy
aircraft carrying cruiser The Admiral Gorshkov, licensed production of
Sukhoi-30MKI jets and T-90S tanks, joint development and production of
advanced front-line aircraft and a multipurpose transport plane and joint
development and production of the BrahMos cruise missile," Serdyukov's
press-secretary said.
"In the course of the visit Serdyukov will hold talks with his Indian
counterpart AK Antony to discuss prospects for cooperation between defense
ministries, Kovalchuk said.
The ninth session of the Russian-Indian inter-governmental commision
was held in Moscow on October 14-15, 2009. Russia and India then inked
intergovernmental agreements on a program for military-technical
cooperation for 2011-2020, on after-sale servicing of Russian arms and
military hardware, and a protocol to the intergovernmental agreement on
cooperation in the development and production of the multipurpose
transport aircraft (of November 12, 2007).