Bengaluru: India is in talks to sell short range surface-to-air missiles to Vietnam, the head of India's defence research agency said on Wednesday, in what would be its first transfer of such weapons to the Southeast Asian country.
"New Delhi is currently talking to a number of countries for sales of its surface-to-air Akash missiles. We are talking to countries, one of them is none other than Vietnam," said S. Christopher, chairman of state-run Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's push to establish India as an arms exporter.
India has been helping the Vietnamese military with training and patrol vessels, but a further deepening of ties with missile sales could draw criticism from China, locked in a territorial dispute with Hanoi in the South China Sea.
Last year, Modi announced a $500 million credit line to Vietnam to buy defence equipment, on top of a $100 million given previously to help it buy patrol boats. The two sides have also agreed for training of Vietnamese air force pilots to operate Su-30 Russian fighter planes.
