By Rahul Bedi, IANS
New Delhi : India appears to have failed in persuading principal military ally Russia to stop China from supplying RD-93 aircraft engines to Pakistan for their Joint Fighter-17 (JF-17) Thunder programme, a report in Jane’s Defence Weekly says.
The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) chief, Air Chief Marshal Tanvir Mahmood Ahmed, told the British journal at the just-concluded Dubai Air Show that the PAF expects to receive the first eight JF-17s powered by RD-93 engines under a “small batch order” over the next few months.
In a thinly veiled reference to nuclear rival India lobbying Russia to pressure China into not clearing the engine for re-export to Pakistan, Ahmed dismissed concerns over the RD-93 as “an issue created from here and there”.
Senior military officers in New Delhi said this setback was yet another instance of India’s impotence in dealing firmly with Russia, its largest defence equipment supplier.
Over the past year, senior ministry of defence (MoD) and Indian Air Force (IAF) officials have givenfeeble assurances that Moscow had “in principle” agreed to disallow the re-export of the RD-93 engines to the PAF.
But these declarations now remain highly questionable, a senior IAF officer said, declining to be identified.
“We (China and Pakistan) are partners on the JF-17 aircraft and avionics but on the engine, it is exclusively from Russia and China has the contract for it,” Ahmed said.
Vested interests, he added, had pushed this issue into the media.
Ahmed said the series production of the JF-17s was under way and would be followed by weapons’ integration after trials.
“By the end of next year, we hope to have a squadron of JF-17s but this could be 10 or 12 aircraft rather than a traditionally larger squadron size,” he said.
Earlier this year, China handed over two JF-17 fighters to Pakistan with the RD-93 engines under the equal partnership agreement between the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation and the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex. Pakistan plans an initial production schedule of 16 JF-17s.
Russia had contracted to supply China 100 RD-93 engines with an option of providing 400 more that, it now appears, are definitely being transferred to Pakistan as part of Moscow’s overall pressure tactics to keep India within its armaments fold.
This pressure has manifested itself in several ways, the latest being the arbitrary doubling by Moscow of the annual escalation rate of contracted weapons systems that is expected to cost India billions of dollars.
New Delhi’s concerns over the RD-93 engines stem from the IAF’s warning last year that if “corrective measures” were not swiftly implemented, India would lose its air superiority over Pakistan.
Air power played a dominant role in the three wars and the 11-week-long border skirmish the neighbours have fought since independence 60 years ago.
“Unless immediate steps are taken to arrest the reduction in IAF’s force levels, the nation will for the first time in its history lose the conventional military edge over Pakistan,” former IAF chief Air Chief Marshal S.P. Tyagi had declared in a classified three-page letter last year to then defence minister Pranab Mukherjee.
He stated that the PAF was being bolstered with the acquisition of 44 F-16s from the US with the “clearly defined goal” of attaining parity with the IAF.
And with China supplying Islamabad JF-17 aircraft fitted with RD-93 engines, the PAF’s combat squadrons would increase from 19 to 26 by 2011-12, Tyagi added.
Conversely, he cautioned that by 2015, the IAF’s combat squadrons could decrease to 26.5 as the IAF has retired or is phasing out scores of ageing Soviet-era MiG-21, MiG-23BN and MiG-27 fighters.
Though the IAF was upgrading 125 MiG-21BIS, 40 MiG-27 and around 67 MiG-29 fighters, as well as building additional Jaguars, its numerical strength was fast degrading.
“Having higher capability does not necessarily mean we don’t need numbers. Numbers will still be required as technology can and will be adapted by all,” Tyagi repeatedly stressed.