India Promises More Military Aid, Training to Burma

The agreement was reached on Monday during a meeting between Burma’s navy chief, Vice-Admiral Soe Thein, and India’s Defense Minister A K Antony and navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta. Gen J J Singh and Indian Defense Secretary Shekhar Dutt also attended the meeting.

Soe Thein, who led a seven-member delegation for the five-day trip that began on April 1, will also visit Indian military installations in Goa and Mumbai.

India has increased its efforts in recent months to improve relations and cooperation with Burma in return for assistance in combating an insurgency in its eastern states along the Burma border.

Soe Thein’s trip this month follows a visit in late January of India’s External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and three other officials to Burma’s new administrative capital Naypyidaw, where they met the junta’s second-in-command Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye.

India has reportedly accepted Burma’s request for military hardware and software in return for the junta's cooperation in flushing out Indian insurgent groups operating from its soil.

The insurgent groups on the border with Burma include the United Liberation Front of Asom, the United Nationalist Liberation Front and the People's Liberation Army, all of which have reportedly set up bases in the jungle along the border.

In December last year, Burma’s Gen Thura Shwe Mann traveled to New Delhi to bid on military hardware, including spare parts and service for Burma’s fleet of MiG-29 jet fighters. In the same month, Burmese soldiers launched attacks on rebel forces along the Indian-Burmese border, particularly on the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, which seeks an autonomous homeland in northeaster India.

India provided support during the attacks with T-55 tanks, helicopters, mortars, radar technology and other materiel ahead of the military operations.

Sources: IRRAWADDY