By IANS
New Delhi : With the scrapped Eurocopter deal and a probe into the Scorpene submarine contract casting a shadow on India-France ties, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner Monday sought to create a positive buzz ahead of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s visit to India.
India and France have “a lot to achieve together”, Kouchner told reporters here at the end of a four-day visit.
India and France would set up a commission on defence issues before Sarkozy’s visit on Jan 24.
“After these four days, I feel that we are very close to each other. You will see that my president will cover a lot of common ground,” he said.
“We have a lot to achieve together. We have a lot of common goals and common problems, from submarines to fighters,” he added.
The minister reiterated that France hoped to sign a US-like bilateral civil nuclear cooperation pact with India, but only after New Delhi finalises its safeguards agreement with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The minister stressed that Sarkozy’s visit would focus on the strategic nature of India-France friendship and underlined the common approach both countries share towards a host of key issues including the UN reforms and climate change and developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The minister said the two countries were discussing an entire gamut of issues, including cooperation on defence, energy and setting up an Indian culture centre in Paris. But no deal or agreement would be signed during Sarkozy’s visit to India.
When asked if Sarkozy would sign any agreements, Kouchner replied: “This is impossible.”
“Unfortunately, we wanted to sign an agreement on helicopters,” he said while referring to a $600 million deal for Eurocopter, a unit of European space giant EADS, to supply 197 helicopters to India, which was scrapped by the Indian defence ministry Dec 6.
Earlier, after his talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Friday, Kouchner had batted vigorously for the deal, saying France was “confident” of winning the scrapped Eurocopter deal, which was expected to be the highlight of Sarkozy’s visit to India.
Kouchner, a co-founder of the Nobel Prize-winning Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), however, underscored France’s disappointment over the scraped deal, saying he was “not satisfied” with the evaluation process and asserted that Eurocopter would “certainly win” in the new bidding process.
An Indian defence ministry official has said the deal had been scrapped due to irregularities in the selection process.
The real reasons for scrapping this deal, however, continue to be the subject of speculation, with sources in the government hinting that Eurocopter used middlemen in defence deals despite an Indian ban on it.
Another arms deal involving France has run into trouble. An Indian court last week ordered the police to complete a probe into charges that a bribe was paid in a 2.4 billion euro ($3 billion) deal to buy Franco-Spanish Scorpene submarines.